SBIR Phase II: A Modular and Reconfigurable Liquid-handling Toolkit for Laboratory Research

这个小型企业创新研究阶段（SBIR）第二阶段项目将开发一个高度可定制的可编程系统，使研究人员能够在广泛的用例中编程和运行实验。物理和生命科学研发人员经常用未连接的台式设备手动进行重复、长时间的实验。量身定制的灵活自动化系统将服务于多个行业，包括化学品、特种聚合物和生物技术。目标是优化研究人员完成研究所需的灵活性，同时最大限度地减少他们在设备和开发定制上花费的精力。该系统将把在大型制造设施中发现的自动化的好处带到实验室的台式规模，在以下方面：(1)将研究人员的时间从他们的生产力中分离出来；(2)为协作和直接建立在先前编程协议上的现代编程方法提供支持。这将加速企业的研发。这个项目的智力价值是开发和商业化的一个系统，使实验室协议自动化访问研究人员。该系统将通过解决系统集成中最困难的元素（通信定时、命令定时、用户界面、数据持久性）来实现自动化，因此研究人员只需要关注协议。系统硬件为多种类型的台式实验室设备统一了不同类型的输入和输出（I/O）。软件前端为连接设备的网络提供可访问的Python应用程序编程接口（API）。软件应用程序处理用户自定义脚本的命令排队和执行。结合使用，这些功能形成了一个灵活的即插即用实验室设备网络，这些设备彼此无缝通信，执行复杂的协议。研究目标是1)建立一个健壮且可伸缩的软件和硬件架构，2)开发、测试和实现资产以加速用户采用。预期的结果是一个系统，使研究人员能够从设备库中选择任何组合的台式实验室设备，将设备配置为自定义设置，选择和修改模板协议，并在几分钟内执行专门的协议。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase (SBIR) Phase II project will develop a highly customizable, programmable system that allows researchers to program and run experiments across wide-ranging use cases. Physical- and life-science R&D personnel frequently conduct repetitive, long-duration experiments manually with unconnected benchtop equipment. A tailored flexible automation system would serve multiple industries, including chemicals, specialty polymers, and biotechnology. The goal is to optimize the flexibility that researchers need to complete their studies while minimizing the efforts they expend on equipment and development customization. This system will bring the benefits of automation found in large-scale manufacturing facilities to the laboratory benchtop-scale in terms of (1) decoupling researchers’ time from their productivity and (2) enabling modern programmatic approaches for collaborating and building directly upon previously programmed protocols. This will accelerate the research and development enterprise. The intellectual merit of this project is the development and commercialization of a system that makes laboratory protocol automation accessible to researchers. The system will make automation accessible by addressing the most difficult elements of system integration (communication timing, command timing, a user-interface, data persistence) so that researchers need only focus on the protocols. The system hardware unifies the disparate types of input and output (I/O) for multiple types of benchtop lab equipment. The software front-end provides an accessible Python application programming interface (API) for the network of connected equipment. The software application handles command queuing and execution for a user’s customized script. Used in combination, these capabilities result in a flexible network of plug-and-play laboratory devices that seamlessly communicate with each other to execute complex protocols. The research objectives are to 1) establish a robust and scalable software and hardware architecture, and 2) develop, test, and implement assets to accelerate user adoption. The anticipated result is a system that enables a researcher to select any combination of benchtop lab equipment from the device library, configure the equipment into a custom setup, select and modify template protocols, and execute specialized protocols in a matter of minutes.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.