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Lab Robots

Lab Robots


Laboratory robotics is a specific field which focuses on the requirements of the biological techniques rather than the science of robotics itself. It is thought that the first commercial laboratory robots were introduced by Zymark Corporation in 1982, although there were simple pick and place robots in place in laboratories before this. 

The word ‘robot’ comes from the Czech word ‘robota’ meaning servant. In the context of the laboratory environment, which involves many repetitive tasks, a laboratory robot can bring a welcome level of automation to perform, what are essentially, manual tasks. The initial concept of a ‘friendly automated arm’ has dramatically changed over the past twenty five or so years. There are now robots available to suit many different laboratory environments and they come in all shapes and sizes.

There are two main types of robot available.  There are complete robotic stations and workstations. Robotic stations are able to automate an entire job. They can be programmed to perform each task in an assay, for example, from inserting the samples into the wells of the plates to filtration, adding substrates, buffers and washes. They can act as the technicians and all the instrumentation, including plate shaking and incubation right the way through to analysis. 

The benefits of this type of system are obvious. They can be set up to analyse thousands of samples. They are very useful to perform rapid analytical screens across a whole population with speed, efficiency and accuracy. The repetitive tasks performed by the robot are the same each time within a very narrow range and so, in theory, each experiment should be highly reproducible. 

In addition to this, robots can be programmed to perform in hazardous conditions, or using hazardous or toxic materials. In general, their increased productivity and improved efficiency mean that they are very valuable additions to any lab.

Workstations are becoming increasingly more popular. These are discreet stand-alone modules automated to perform one or a few tasks rather than an entire assay. The advantages of these workstations are that they bring flexibility and can therefore be more cost effective than a single role robot. Human-workstation teams can troubleshoot problems far more effectively and a human worker can step in to resolve problems – such as a crooked pipette tip – far more efficiently.

Robots have come a long way from the first concepts of a mechanised humanoid – or part of one! Laboratory robotics is an expanding field and with the rapid advances in computer technology especially, over the past fifty years, will continue to improve and evolve to bring efficiency and automation to the laboratory.