When I was a molecular biologist, folks used to ask me what I did. I used to say, “Squirt things into tubes and wait.” OpenTrons takes that drudgery out of liquid handling for the usual molecular biology techniques (and would have saved me the last 20+years of tennis elbow).
HAXLR8R, a hardware accelerator program, got, rightfully, excited with OpenTrons (see tweet, upper right). OpenTrons is a really nifty $2000 liquid handling robot (accessories are extra), geared towards biotech.
And OpenTrons will do more than just accelerate molecular biology liquid handling steps. Software-controlled, it will also allow scientists to do more and experiment with variations they normally would not have done manually. That’s really helpful, if you’ve ever had to constrain your experiment due to manual processes.
If I had the money, I’d buy one in a heartbeat. I can think of a ton of experiments I’d do if one of these were in my house.
Makerbot?
At one level, I don’t want to be a spoilsport with this exciting crowd-funded liquid handling robot. But at the same time, I do want to add some perspective that perhaps those who are not in the field might not have.
I can see why folks looking at OpenTrons might think Makerbot – the software-controlled motion of the pipette, dropping things in precise places, moving things around.
But when you are done with all the to-and-fro, Makerbot leaves you with a finished product. In contrast, with OpenTrons, there are many other steps after all the liquid handling before you get to any finished product in molecular biology, for example, transforming bacteria, plating, and so forth – yet more manual steps.
Robots rule
Yes, parts of the molecular biology workflow can be robotized. But right now, OpenTrons only does one part. To give you an idea, there are colony picking robots and plasmid construct building robots (which you could potentially turn OpenTrons into), but there are still many other steps that I have no idea if they’ve been automated or can be.
To me, with things like OpenPCR and OpenTrons changing the cost and construction of molecular biology machinery, the hardware and automation will become more accessible, not only to users, but to tinkerers who will string them together in more interesting ways.
So, while OpenTrons is not Makerbot in terms of finished product, it is a kissing cousin in terms of making more accessible what was once expensive and complex machinery.
And for that, HAXLR8R is rightfully excited in the Markerbot comparison.
Now go pledge to OpenTrons at Kickstarter. Closes November 30th, 2014.
