Liquid handling robots are becoming more accessible
Liquid handling robots have been described as the physical connections that link different analytical and product-producing steps in a workflow. Emilie highlights the importance of flexibility for scientists working in R&D:
“Our customers want to be able to easily test new conditions or repeat experiments using different samples, which currently remains difficult when using the software that comes with most liquid handlers. This is where Synthace comes into play: by using elements that represent a set of instructions, the users can easily modify parameters without having to re-script the whole workflow.”
Emilie recalls how Synthace recently helped a client to optimise their construct assembly process that had initially been done manually. By supplying its platform, Synthace delivered a usable system that was not previously available for the particular robot that the customer wanted:
“They were very happy with it, which was particularly rewarding to our entire team who dedicated their time and effort to this project. There was me on the customer success side, and we also had our lab and engineering teams involved. Delivering the Synthace platform to the customer and seeing how it facilitates their work and how they could use it without prior programming skills was definitely an amazing feeling.”
Keltoum, who is also one of Synthace’s customers, is in agreement:
“By using the Synthace platform, our scientists were not required to have any programming experience to be able to program a robot. With its visualisation tools and the high level of abstraction, the Synthace platform was a great means of introducing the scientists to the automation world.”
A reliable, user-friendly graphical interface is essential
Biologists adopting computer-aided approaches are likely to find themselves face-to-face with a brand new graphical interface. Keltoum shares her vision of an ideal graphical interface:
“An ideal graphical interface for me should offer great freedom in terms of control of the robots, be user-friendly and overall reliable. We all know that one software that crashes for no reason! It should be as close as possible to what the reality is (colours, shapes, to scale, etc.) but in a nicer way. An ideal graphical interface should be great at avoiding confusion.”
As part of Michelle’s overall mission of writing software to help biologists run better experiments, she has been focusing on improving user experience. This involves understanding how scientists interact with the user interface to simulate their experiments. Coming from a software background, Michelle is intrigued so see how she can create better workflows for biologists:
“I communicate with the scientists and say: ‘Hey, I want to see what you guys are doing. How can we close that loop?’”
In addition to engineering and customer success teams that Michelle and Emilie are a part of, Synthace also has a lab team who constantly tests the platform on real-life biological experiments and with various liquid handling robots. The team works in the laboratory that is a part of Synthace’s London office in White City and feeds back to the software engineers with any suggestions on how the Synthace platform's user interface could be improved, making automation even more accessible to biologists.
Automation to revolutionize biological R&D
The recent advances in biological automation, enabled by computer-aided biology, are paving the way to more efficient R&D, allowing the scientists to perform experiments with higher throughput and in less time. This enables them to dedicate more time to data analysis, exploring new research topics, and brainstorming new ways to dissect biology. Therefore, automation will not replace human scientists but will empower them to do more cutting-edge research by eliminating most of the manual labour that is currently a limiting step.
Synthace is proud to have built the software platform that makes lab automation more accessible and flexible for users. It does not require any programming skills; it is user-friendly and constantly being developed by a multidisciplinary team of lab scientists and software engineers to improve its user interface. This would not be possible without the team of amazing women, both at Synthace and its client companies, who are an invaluable part of the scientific community working towards revolutionising biology. Emilie, Michelle, and Keltoum are examples of the many extremely competent, dedicated, and experienced women in science who are delivering solutions for biotechnology in the 21st century.
