Lab Automation for High Throughput Clone Screening

Explore automation-ready systems for your clone screening workflow

Mammalian and microbial clone screening projects traditionally begin with a target—a receptor, protein, or gene that participates in a biological pathway of interest. Next comes screening, where thousands to millions of cells are tested and analyzed in relation to the target. This presents a significant bottleneck for labs as it requires laborious and time-consuming methods across a wide range of analytical platforms.

With Molecular Devices automated clone screening workflows, you can ease the burden on your lab by significantly reducing hands-on-time while creating a central repository for data pulled from multiple processes. Our automated solutions unify all of your laboratory devices to increase your throughput and efficiency while reducing human interaction.

Lab Automation clone screening

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Automated cell line development workflow

Bionex Solutions HiG4 automated centrifuge

Cell line development requires the discovery of single cell-derived clones that produce high and consistent levels of the target therapeutic protein. A critical first step in the process is the isolation of single, viable cells. Single cells proliferate to form colonies that can then be assessed for productivity of the target therapeutic protein. Viability and growth rates of single cell-derived clones are then characterized before final selection and scale-up.

Workcell integrated system solution:

CloneSelect Single-Cell Printer
CloneSelect Imager
SpectraMax iD5 Multi-Mode Microplate Reader
AquaMax Microplate Washer
Sartorius Octet BLI Label-Free Detection Systems
Beckman Coulter Biomek automated liquid handler
Bionex Solutions HiG4 automated centrifuge
LiCONiC LiCotel automated plate hotels
LiCONiC StoreX automated incubator

Automated molecular cloning workflow

Molecular cloning refers to the isolation of a DNA sequence from any species (often a gene), and its insertion into a vector for propagation, without alteration of the original DNA sequence. This is a very laborious process when done manually requiring hundreds of plates and kits. There are several areas where errors or contamination can occur. Automating the process can reduce FTE time by 50% while increasing throughput and efficiency two fold.

Workcell integrated system solution:

QPix Microbial Colony Pickers
SpectraMax Microplate Reader with SoftMax Pro GxP Software
Beckman Coulter Biomek automated liquid handler
LiCONiC StoreX automated incubator
Micronic Tube Capper/De-Capper
Plate labeler, sealer and peeler
Multidrop Combi
PCR Platform
Plate Centrifuge
Fragment analyzer

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Applications of Lab automation for high-throughput clone screening

Cell Cultured Meat
Cell Line Development
Gene Editing
Hybridoma Screening
Monoclonal Antibodies (mAbs)
Phage Display
Precision Fermentation
Synthetic Biology
Toxicology

Cell Cultured Meat

Cell cultured meat is a product of cellular agriculture that uses biopsied animal cells to grow sustainable, humane meat as an alternative to the traditional farming industry. Because cell cultured meat is made with mammalian cells, many of the processes in developing and scaling a cell cultured meat product will mirror those in in biologics production, specifically cell line development.

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Cell Line Development

Cell line development is a critical step in the process of generating biopharmaceutical molecules, such as monoclonal antibodies. The process often begins with transfecting the host cell type with the DNA encoding the therapeutic protein of interest allowing for random or directed integration of target DNA into the host cell genome. Thousands of clones are screened to isolate the rare high producing cells, a manual and time-consuming process.

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Gene Editing

Gene editing is a genetic manipulation in which a living organism’s genomic DNA is deleted, inserted, replaced, or modified. Gene editing is a site-specific targeting to create breaks in DNA through various techniques and does not always involve repair mechanisms. It consists of two techniques – inactivation and correction.

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Hybridoma Screening

Antibody discovery typically refers to the screening and identification of monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) that target a specific epitope for the diagnosis and treatment of diseases. A common approach to generating monoclonal antibodies involves the fusion of a pre-mitotic cancer cell with a post-mitotic and terminal antibody-expressing B-cell from the spleen. The resulting fused cell is called a hybridoma and has the advantage of producing mAbs while dividing to regenerate itself. Screening hybridomas for binding specificity or productivity can be automated using the ClonePix 2 System.

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Monoclonal Antibodies (mAbs)

Monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) originate from one unique parent cell, thus binding only to a single epitope. Monoclonal antibody discovery typically refers to the screening and identification of specific antibodies that target a specific epitope for the diagnosis and treatment of diseases, like the coronavirus for COVID-19.

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Phage Display

Phage Display is a technique to enable the study of protein, peptide or DNA interaction with a target protein. This molecular tool enables the discovery of high-affinity binders by using bacteriophages to present a target protein on the exterior of the viral coat, while containing the DNA encoding the target protein inside the viral coat. The resultant displaying phages can be screened for binding against a library of peptides or proteins in a high throughput fashion. QPix colony pickers can be used to automate inoculation, plating, spreading and picking in a Phage Display workflow.

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Precision Fermentation

Cellular agriculture allows us to produce genuine animal proteins through microbial precision fermentation. Using synthetic biology techniques like strain engineering, scientists can engineer microbial cells as cellular factories for various organic molecules, most commonly proteins. In the food supply chain, precision fermentation is used to create everything from plant-based proteins from yeast cells to dairy- and animal-free whey protein from fungal strains.

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Synthetic Biology

Synthetic biology is a broad term that refers to the manipulation of genetic pathways to harness the power of existing biological systems in novel ways (often to manufacture molecules or proteins). Synthetic biology applies principles that are derived from engineering, specifically design-build-test-learn cycles, to biological systems. By leveraging high-throughput workflows, synthetic biologists can accelerate this process.

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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.