Jim Metherall, associate professor of genetics at the University of Utah, got his first robot in the mid-1990s while buried by a project on cholesterol homeostasis. "We were trying to clone a gene by complementing a mutation in mammalian cells, and we couldn't do it with an entire cDNA library, because the signal-to-noise was too low," Metherall explains. So he broke the library into small pools, isolated DNA, and then tested each pool for activity.
A few thousand minipreps later, Metherall recalls, "A very qualified, capable, valuable technician approached me and said she was sick of it. It was either automate or find new personnel." Metherall applied for and won an onsite equipment competition grant, some $50,000 to $60,000, as he recalls, which went into a BioMek 2000 automated liquid handler (about $45,000 at the time) and accessory equipment such as a plate washer and pump.
Today, he still uses ...
