Robotic Instrumentation to Establish Workflows for Systematic Cell-Based Analyses.

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Our project entitled “Robotic Instrumentation to Establish Workflows for Systematic Cell-Based Analyses” represents a request to acquire a robotic instrument to automate the handling of living cells that are routinely used in experiments to study fundamental biological processes at the level of individual cells. This robotic instrument will be used by a team of established and emerging researchers with active research programs directed at defining the biochemical mechanisms that orchestrate complex cellular processes such as the transmission of regulatory information in cells, communication between cells, the transport of cellular components between different sites within cells, and how cells respond to adapt to changes in their environment. The applicant team has identified a shared opportunity to embrace new technology to transform our research strategies by dramatically increasing the throughput and accuracy of our experimental work to accelerate our pace of discovery. In this respect, the robotic instrument will enable the plating and manipulation of living cells in cell culture dishes with up to 384 individual wells in each cell culture dish to dramatically exceed the capacity and precision of manipulations that we currently perform manually. In fact, for many of our research applications, our experimental throughput will be increased by 100-1000-times which will provide exciting new opportunities. For example, we will be able to screen libraries of thousands of chemicals to identify specific compounds that modulate fundamental cellular processes. Similarly, we will be able to perform genetic screens that target thousands of genes to identify individual genes that can be targeted to modulate these processes. In addition to yielding new research tools to study fundamental cellular processes with unprecedented precision, these studies will offer the promise of identifying new targets for drugs for treating diseases where these processes are altered by mutations in specific genes of individuals affected by these diseases. By adopting common experimental workflows, this initiative will also dramatically strengthen collaboration between the applicant labs and provide unrivalled training opportunities on state-of-the-art instrumentation for a large cohort of trainees (~250 trainees in applicant labs in the past 6 years). Overall, it is expected that the benefits to be realized with the implementation of automated workflows using the robotic instrumentation will include the acquisition of new knowledge in life science fields related to the fundamental mechanisms of complex biological processes, the potential for new products, services or procedures for the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries, as well as training of highly qualified personnel for employment in these industries or as researchers in academic, government or private sector labs.