Explore automation-ready systems for cellular screening workflows

 

Our automated, high-content screening (HCS) workcell provides an end-to-end solution that helps standardize live 2D/3D cellular development process with cell culture, treatment, and incubation, through to imaging, analysis, and data processing, delivering consistent, unbiased, and biologically-relevant results at scale.

With intuitive scheduling software, researchers can control the 3D workflow remotely, tracking the cell journey from single cell to differentiated organoid along the way. Cell culture and incubation is streamlined with an automated incubator and collaborative robot that maintains culture consistency. Media exchange for culture maintenance is standardized and streamlined with automated liquid handling, minimizing manual intervention. 3D model development can be monitored over time with label-free imaging to assess assay readiness. Plus, with real-time feedback, scheduling of automated compound addition and treatment is standardized.

 

Organoid Innovation Center

Automated 3D cell culture and image analysis lab streamlines and scales complex biology research

Check out our new Organoid Innovation Center at Molecular Devices where we showcase these cutting-edge technologies with novel 3D biology methods to address key challenges of scaling complex 3D biology. The collaborative space brings customers and researchers into the lab to test automated workflows for organoid culturing and screening, with guidance from in-house scientists.

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Workcell lab components:

  • Molecular Devices labware hotels
  • AquaMax Microplate Washer
  • SpectraMax Microplate Reader with SoftMax Pro GxP Software
  • ImageXpress High-content Imaging System:
    • ImageXpress Confocal HT.ai
    • ImageXpress Pico
  • Precise Automation PreciseFlex 400 robot
  • Biosero Green Button Go automation scheduling software
  • Beckman Coulter Biomek i7 automated liquid handle
  • LiCONiC Wave STX44 automated CO2 incubator
  • Bionex Solutions HiG4 automated centrifuge

Collaborators for a fully-integrated solution

Beckman Coulter Beckman Coulter Biomek i7 automated liquid handler — Industry-leading liquid handler designed to optimize dependability and walk-away time in mid- to high-throughput labs with 45 deck positions, 0.5 - 5,000 µL pipetting volume range, and single or dual head options.
BioNex Bionex Solutions HiG4 automated centrifuge — Compact, temperature controlled centrifuge offers rapid acceleration up to 5000 x g, providing better pelletizing, cleaner supernatants, and faster filtration than lower speed centrifuges.
Biosero Biosero Green Button Go automation scheduling software — Proven software solution guides scientists through the automation experience, empowering them to control timing and scheduling of experiments to make better decisions in less time with more data.
LiCONiC LiCONiC Wave STX44 automated CO2 incubator — Complete solution for controlled environmental automated storage in laboratory automation designed with proprietary technology that delivers a robust system for frequent access and optimum environmental control using a variety of labware.
Precise Automation Precise Automation PreciseFlex 400 robot — Autosampler developed specifically for benchtop applications where price, ease-of-use, space requirements, and safety are critical, with a four axis configuration and a linear rail to service multiple stations within workcells of varying size.

Latest Resources

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Applications of Lab automation for high-throughput, high-content screening (HCS)

  • 3D Cell Models

    3d Cell Models

    3D cell cultures offer the advantage of closely recapitulating aspects of human tissues including the architecture, cell organization, cell-cell and cell-matrix interactions, and more physiologically-relevant diffusion characteristics. Utilization of 3D cellular assays adds value to research and screening campaigns, spanning the translational gap between 2D cell cultures and whole-animal models. By reproducing important parameters of the in vivo environment, 3D models can provide unique insight into the behavior of stem cells and developing tissues in vitro.

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    Brain Organoids

    Brain (Cerebral) Organoids

    Brain organoids are 3D tissue models representing one or more regions of the brain. They can overcome the shortcomings of conventional post-mortem and animal brain models to produce clinically relevant results.

    Cerebral organoids have great potential for understanding brain development and neuronal diseases. They can also be used for investigating genetic disorders and the effects of compounds. Nevertheless, capturing the uniqueness of the human brain requires functional assays and high-content imaging systems.

    Learn more about brain organoids 

  • Cancer Research

    Cancer Research

    Cancer researchers need tools that enable them to more easily study the complex and often poorly understood interactions between cancerous cells and their environment, and to identify points of therapeutic intervention. Learn about instrumentation and software that facilitate cancer research using, in many cases, biologically relevant 3D cellular models like spheroids, organoids, and organ-on-a-chip systems that simulate the in vivo environment of a tumor or organ.

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    Drug Discovery & Development

    Drug Discovery & Development

    The drug discovery landscape is shifting, with more scientists centering cell line development, disease models, and high-throughput screening methods around physiologically-relevant 3D cell models. The reason for this is clear: Using cellular model systems in research that closely mimic patient disease states or human organs can bring life-saving therapeutics to market – faster.

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  • Drug Discovery and Development

    Drug Discovery and Development

    For every drug that makes it to the finish line, another nine don’t succeed. This alarming failure rate can be traced to reliance on 2D cell cultures that don’t closely mimic complex human biology, often leading to inaccurate predictions of a drug’s potential and extended drug development timelines.

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    Intestinal Organoids

    Intestinal Organoids

    Intestinal organoids are 3D tissue models that recapitulate structures in the intestinal lumen and on the surrounding intestinal epithelium.

    The cell composition and arrangement of the epithelium make intestinal organoids useful for studying intestinal cell biology, regeneration, differentiation, as wells as diseases phenotypes including effects of specific mutations, microbiome, or inflammation process.

    Learn more about intestinal organoids 

  • Organoids

    Organoids

    Organoids are three-dimensional (3D) multi-cellular microtissues that are designed to closely mimic the complex structure and functionality of human organs. Organoids typically consist of a co-culture of cells which demonstrate a high order of self-assembly to allow for an even better representation of complex in vivo cell responses and interactions, as compared to traditional 2D cell cultures.

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    Patient-derived organoids (Tumoroids)

    Patient-derived organoids

    Patient-derived tumor organoids or tumoroids are cultures of tumor cells that can be generated from individual patients. Tumoroids are highly valuable tools for cancer research, drug development, and personalized medicine.

    Early detection and treatment are crucial in the survival rate of breast cancer patients. This necessitates the use of clinically relevant tumor models to understand the mechanism, analyze tumor biomarkers, and screen anticancer drugs. Breast cancer tumoroids provide the platform to study tumor physiology and response to targeted therapies.

    Learn how to analyze breast cancer tumoroid growth and the efficacy of anticancer treatments with high-throughput screening and high-content imaging solutions:

    Learn more about patient-derived breast cancer tumoroids 

  • Pulmonary (Lung) Organoids

    Pulmonary (Lung) Organoids

    Lung organoid cultures are 3D microtissue models recapitulating the morphological and functional characteristics of the airway, such as mucus secretion, ciliary beating, and regeneration. This biological relevance enables the study of repair/regeneration mechanisms in lung injury and phenotypic changes in pulmonary diseases. Lung organoids also can be used for toxicity assessment or drug testing.

    Learn more about lung organoids 

    Spheroids

    Spheroids

    Spheroids are multi-cellular 3D structures that mimic in vivo cell responses and interactions. They can be highly reproducible and to be scaled for high-content screening. Compared with adherent cells grown in 2D monolayers, 3D growth conditions are believed to more closely reflect the natural environment of cancer cells. Acquiring measurements from these larger structures involve acquiring images from different depths (z-planes) within the body of the spheroid and analyzing them in 3D, or collapsing the images into a single 2D stack before analysis.

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  • Stem Cell Research

    Stem Cell Research

    Stem cells provide researchers with new opportunities to study targets and pathways that are more relevant to disease processes. They oer a more realistic model to identify and confirm new drug targets and generate pharmacology and toxicology data earlier, with stronger translation to the clinical setting. Additionally, the application of stem cells in drug development creates a new path to personalized medicine, while at the same time reducing, or even potentially replacing, animal testing.

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    Toxicology

    Toxicology

    Toxicology is the study of adverse effects of natural or man-made chemicals on living organism. It is a growing concern in our world today as we are exposed to more and more chemicals, both in our environment and in the products we use.

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Resources for Lab automation for high content screening (HCS)

Presentations
Videos & Webinars
patient-derived Tumoroids

The search for answers: Using lab automation with patient-derived tumoroids to find more relevant therapies for clinically aggressive cancers

Automating culture and high-content imaging

Automating culture and high-content imaging of 3D organoids for in vitro assessment of compound effects

Tips to automating molecular cloning and strain engineering applications

Tips to automating molecular cloning and strain engineering applications

Organoid Innovation Center Walkthrough

Organoid Innovation Center Walkthrough

Disease modeling in the 21st century

Disease modeling in the 21st century: Automated organoid assays with 3D imaging

High-throughput, organoid-derived organ-on-a-chip systems for drug discovery and disease modelling

High-throughput, organoid-derived organ-on-a-chip systems for drug discovery and disease modelling

Transitioning high-content assays to 3D

Transitioning high-content assays to 3D: Scientific opportunities and imaging challenges

Getting started with imaging 3D cell models – all you need to know

Getting started with imaging 3D cell models – all you need to know

Developing High Throughput Organ on a Chip Tissue

Developing high-throughput organ-on-a-chip tissue models for drug discovery using high-content imaging

Physiologically-Relevant Tissue Models Using a High-Throughput Organ-on-a-Chip Platform

Physiologically-Relevant Tissue Models Using a High-Throughput Organ-on-a-Chip Platform