Streamlining Science: How does Lab Automation Drive Efficiency?

In today’s scientific landscape, labs are under immense pressure to reduce costs, shorten timelines, and maximize output, often from limited resources. Lab automation has emerged as an incredibly valuable tool to address these challenges, empowering researchers to streamline processes and accelerate discoveries. 

By optimizing common laboratory tasks and processes, lab automation continues to demonstrate its value to the life science community. In drug discovery, automated platforms facilitate high-throughput screening of therapeutic candidates, accelerating the discovery process and bringing life-saving treatments to market more quickly. Similarly, in genomics research, automation has revolutionized sequencing and analysis, enabling researchers to delve deeper into the human genome and unravel the complexity of biological systems and processes at a faster pace than ever before. In more ubiquitous applications, automation has transformed sample management processes, allowing labs to handle libraries of precious samples with speed, accuracy and security. 

Ensuring consistently accurate and reliable results 

Consistency and accuracy are paramount in scientific research. Without robust and trustworthy data, scientists’ claims cannot withstand scrutiny and validation by peers. Lab automation presents a robust solution to minimizing human error and improving accuracy, leading to more trustworthy and reproducible results that comply with industry regulations and guidelines. An example of how automation can help to ensure accurate and reliable results would be integrating a biostorage instrument such as the arktic sample management instrument. With robust and controlled storage from -80°C to -20°C, arktic offers extensive monitoring and fail-safe back-up systems to ensure that correct conditions are maintained automatically throughout the shelf life of samples.  

arktic® - Automated Biobanking

Accelerating research outcomes through increased throughput 

Automated platforms can perform routine tasks at a greater pace than scientists can do by hand. For example, an automated liquid handler - such as the apricot S3 - can quickly and accurately dispense reagents across entire 96 or 384-well plates at once, whereas manual pipetting would be significantly more laborious and time-consuming, even with a multi-channel pipette. 

With the ability to process larger volumes of samples in a shorter space of time, lab automation expedites the research process and allows labs to generate more data with their resources, speeding up the pace of discovery. Furthermore, by taking on the burden of repetitive, manual tasks, automation enhances workflow efficiency by freeing up researcher time to focus on more complex aspects of work that require critical thinking and analysis. By delegating routine and mundane tasks to automated systems, scientists can devote their expertise to experimental design, data interpretation, and problem-solving, sparking innovation and driving research outcomes.

Summary 

Lab automation continues to transform life sciences research, ensuring a consistently high standard of accuracy, while driving throughput and facilitating faster research outcomes. At a time when labs are under pressure to do more with less, automation can be a cost-effective solution streamlining operations and maximizing productivity. 

As scientists ourselves, we’re proud to be at the forefront of this exciting field, providing truly innovative automated solutions that address real-world lab challenges and continue to make a real difference to human health.