Developing customized laboratory automation solutions for complex liquid handling operations requires access to state-of-the-art robotics and OEM instrumentation. Flexible and modular components are essential building blocks of many of these bespoke designs, and the Xantus® XYZ robot has stood the test of time, supporting over 10 years of OEM integration by Synchron Lab Automation.

Next generation sequencing is now in widespread use throughout the life sciences sector, but the commonly used short-read sequencing methods are often subject to GC base pair bias. Combined with the inherent mapping ambiguity of the short reads, this often results in fragmented genome assemblies, creating a demand for technologies offering longer reads that simplify analysis and yield more complete sequences. Using its proprietary technology, Pacific Biosciences is able to offer longer reads, more uniform coverage and high accuracy, supporting advanced genomics, full-length transcript sequencing and epigenetics.

Continuous advances in medical understanding are leading to rapid growth in the demand for diagnostic testing, making automation essential for laboratories trying to address this increase in their workloads. Many providers are also centralizing and consolidating testing to reduce costs, relying on instruments with higher throughput capacities to meet the demands of large service laboratories. Spanish biotechnology company Vircell recently partnered with Tecan to create a high throughput automated system for its VirClia® assays, building on the success of the company’s existing VirClia instrument.

Cell separation has become instrumental in many areas of medical research over the last two decades, and Miltenyi Biotec’s MACS® Technology has become the gold standard technique, having been cited in over 20,000 publications. Combining superparamagnetic microparticles conjugated to specific antibodies with proprietary columns, this technology uses strong magnetic fields to separate specific cell types, allowing retention of both labeled and unlabeled cells for downstream analysis.

Microbioreactors are a convenient research tool, enabling cost-effective screening of a variety of fermentation parameters prior to scale-up and manufacturing of biological products. m2p-labs’ proprietary bioreactor technology offers automated, parallel monitoring of multiple micro-fermentations, and has been proven in applications such as clone screening, media optimization and synthetic biology.

Ongoing technical support and training can be a major concern for laboratory instrument providers looking to outsource development of new platforms.