Courtesy of The Automation Partnership
Automated tissue culture systems, like the SelecT automated mammalian cell culture system shown here, provide a level of plate-to-plate uniformity that can be difficult to achieve manually. And because the systems work 24/7, they can have assay-ready plates available early on a Monday morning.
Much has been written of how robots have been used to streamline drug development efforts. Robots never vary their routines, never tire, and never make mistakes. But they also require a steady stream of input material to work with, and when it comes to cultured cells, that can be a problem. Although a single assay may require only a few hundred or thousand cells, high-throughput screening (HTS) programs often involve hundreds of thousands or even millions of tests.
That volume of work strains resources to the point that even giant drug companies like AstraZeneca have trouble keeping up. "It was difficult ...
