Chemistry Automation & Liquid Handling Agenda

Laboratory Informatics; Climbing the Slope of Enlightenment?
John Trigg, Director, PhaseFour Informatics, United Kingdom

The concept of the e-Laboratory, or integrated laboratory gets ever closer, particularly with electronic laboratory notebooks replacing their paper counterparts. However, a number of challenges remain in order to fully exploit the potential that digital technologies present to assisting and extending the course of science knowledge.

Technology Spotlight:
Better Drug Discovery with Acoustic Transfer
Gino Segre, Product Manager, Labcyte

Labcyte’s acoustically driven liquid dispense technology is well known to offer a number of benefits to researchers.  New findings published in PLoS show that Labcyte Echo liquid handlers can also profoundly improve drug discovery strategy.

Coffee Break and Networking in the Exhibition Hall

ESPRIT: Library Based Construct Screening for Soluble Expression of Challenging Proteins and their Complexes
Darren Hart, Team Leader/Director, European Molecular Biology Laboratory, France

The ESPRIT technology uses picking & arraying robots to identify rare soluble expression constructs from random libraries of up to 28,000 size-selected fragments of a single target gene. The resulting purifiable proteins can be used in structural biology, vaccinology, screening & functional studies. 

DMSO Based Chemistry for Rapid Identification of Structure Activity Relationships and Lead Optimization
Alberto Bresciani, Head of Screening Technologies, IRBM Science Park SpA, Italy

The presentation will describe an easy and fast approach for the exploration of classes and sub-classes of molecules. DMSO based chemistry eliminates the need for downstream processes and thus enables an efficient two step synthesis/assay procedure.

Lunch Break and Networking in Exhibition Hall

Poster Viewing Session

Implementing Compound Management Strategies and Technologies to Insure High Impact HTS Results
Peter Hodder, Senior Director, Scripps Florida, United States of America

The quality and organization of compound library screening samples have a profound effect on HTS outcomes.  Compound management strategies will be presented, as well as the results from a quantitative assessment of a screening sample’s solubility, purity and color on the quality HTS assay results.

Coffee Break and Networking in the Exhibition Hall

Liquid Handling Solutions for Biochemical and Cell-based Assays in an Academic Environment
Kamyar Hadian, Group Leader, Helmholtz Zentrum München, Germany

Screening in the academic environment has highly emerged within the last years. Accordingly, we have installed two fully automated liquid handling systems, one for biochemical and one for cell-based screening (containing a High-Content Screening module and sterile housing).

Benchmark of Seven Calibration Technologies for Non-Contact Micro Liquid Handling Devices
Dong Liang, R&D Engineer, IMTEK, University of Freiburg, Germany

A comprehensive benchmark of seven different calibration technologies with quantitative performance comparison on the same liquid aliquot in the range from pl to µl is presented. This work provides the best overview of almost all low liquid volume calibration technologies.

Universal Dispensing Performance Parameters for a Differentiated Evaluation of Accuracy and Precision
Stefan Bammesberger, R&D Engineer, IMTEK, University of Freiburg, Germany

An objective, comparable and differentiated measurement plan is proposed by defining derivatives of dispensing accuracy and precision which serve as meaningful and universally applicable performance parameters.

Close of Day One

Technology Spotlight:
Title to be Confirmed
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Coffee Break and Networking in the Exhibition Hall

Wireless Eight Channel Printhead for Non-Contact Nanoliter Droplet Ejection
Andreas Madjarov, R&D Project Manager, IMTEK University of Freiburg and BioFluidix GmbH, Germany

The presented liquid handling system dispenses volumes in the nanoliter range in a non-contact manner using disposable tips for droplet generation. The autonomous actuator is easily embedded in existing lab robots extending their volume range and therefore their production capabilities.

Autonomously compensated pressure controlled and driven dispenser for the IVD industry
Laurent Tanguy, R&D Engineer, HSG-IMIT, Germany

A pressure driven and controlled fluid dispenser for the sub-microliter range is presented here. The in-time processing of the applied pressure enables the direct calculation of the dispensed volume and allows an autonomous and continuous regulation of the dispensing parameters.

Technology Spotlight:
Thermo Scientific Liquid Handling Tools for Automating Laboratory Workflows
Tuula Jernstrom, Product Manager, Thermo Fisher Scientific

The Thermo Scientific Multidrop reagent dispensers and the Versette automated liquid handler provide efficient solution for various liquid handling needs in pharmaceutical, biotechnology and academic research laboratories, enhancing reproducibility and effectiveness.

Lunch Break and Networking in Exhibition Hall

Poster Viewing Session

Automated Sample Management – Maintaining and Tracking Sample Integrity from Tubes to Plates
Chris Walsh, Manager Sample Management, Brooks Life Science Systems , United Kingdom

Techniques and solutions used in automated sample management to monitor and maintain sample integrity, including optimum storage conditions, auditing of microplates and tubes, and applications in new processes.

Coffee Break and Networking in the Exhibition Hall

The Challenges of Compound Management in the Initiative EU-OPENSCREEN
Edgar Specker, Head of Compound Management, Medicinal Chemistry Group, Leibniz Institute of Molecular Pharmacology, Germany

The talk will shortly describe the common workflow at the Screening Unit. It will give an overview how the Screening Unit is integrated in the context of the European initiative EU-OPENSCREEN and how the commercial compound library is selected in one of the work packages. Additionally the presentation and determination of defined compound properties will be discussed.

Close of Conference