The frontiers of bio automation
What full-stack lab automation means for how and where we do research
Typically when folks discuss biology lab automation, it’s in the purview of point problems such as machine integration, sample management, or scheduling software. Although these are important areas to build companies around and use as selling points for new products, we think the full consequences of autonomous bio labs should be elaborated upon. During this year’s SLAS, we saw that autonomous bio labs are possible and will only increase in prominence. This is fundamentally going to change how and where we’re able to do research - let us show you how.
1. The transformation of how we do research
Running a life sciences research lab is a complex and expensive undertaking. In addition to the costs of salaries for employees, equipment, and supplies, there are numerous overhead costs associated with running a lab. These costs can add up quickly and can have a significant impact on the lab's budget and ability to conduct research effectively. The overheads include physical space (many of which are in the coastal cities which garner some of the highest real estate prices in the world at the moment). We’ve heard many coastal cities have hefty price tags of $5,000 per bench per month. Other sources of overheads include full time employees (FTEs), Lab Instruments & Consumables, Hazardous Waste Disposal, and Regulatory Compliance Costs. The turnkey lab companies (such as Lab Central, JLabs, and Alexandria Launch Labs), provide most of the lab infrastructure allowing for hazardous waste disposal, regulatory compliance, access to lab instruments from the onset.
Although the turnkey lab solutions help in the ease in setting up a lab, we don’t think they’re particularly well suited for the future where most research might be happening in decentralized, autonomous labs due to their urban locations in some of the most expensive cities in the world. LabDAO also falls on the continuum above and uses decentralized communication to increase resource utilization of existing labs and allow for decentralized experiments. Although there will always be some need for this, we think the labs of the future will be in locations with cheap land (far away from urban centers). After all, remotely operated labs can be located anywhere, not just in biotech hubs. Automation by nature necessitates and creates standardization of process, which in turn can lower the costs to make data reproducible for regulatory compliance. The accessibility of automation is something that will continue to broaden its use (why we’re excited about Spaero Bio). One of the most crucial aspects of full-scale automation is that laboratory scientists and research employees spend more time making high level decisions versus repetitive lab tasks, curtailing creativity and time for deeper thought. We’ve heard a critique that the separation of scientists from physical experiments will reduce creativity and innovation. However, we think the uncoupling of the scientist from the bench will lead to more creativity as they’ll be free from repetitive tasks. We posit this will allow for broader hypothesis building, throughput, and remove the decision making noise so they can create. But we think there’s something more happening here.
Conceptually decentralized autonomous labs is a physical step more innovation but want to highlight that some labs will also incorporate closed loop systems you will only need to prompt engineer. For example, a closed system would could conduct experiments, analyze results, plan and execute further experiments. One could envisage this being facilitated by simple prompts such as ‘Solve the cure for glioblastoma with a small molecule’. Also Artificial is already pioneering GPT for lab automation! Strides have been made with Chemify which is a closed-loop chemistry system which already allows for ‘molecule-on-demand’.
Although we’re still a few years away from this on a decentralized scale, companies such as Chemify - and others - will vertically build for point use-cases but then be able to deploy the closed loop systems. Some of the biggest companies of the next 10-20 years will lead us through this lab and experimental singularity.
2. The transformation of where we do research
Autonomous labs in non-habitable places
How we conduct research is only one piece of the puzzle. In the above section we alluded to autonomous labs leading to research in decentralized places. What’s most exciting is research labs in uninhabitable places such as the poles, space, and underwater. Non-habitable land and environments are conducive to research because they won’t be competition from humans (so is cheaper) for space and due to better conditions for biological sample storage (humidity and warmth bad to samples).
What does this mean for where we can do science?
Space
Believe it or not, big pharma has been on the ‘bio in space’ train since the 2000’s! Novartis, Merck and Eli Lilly have all conducted experiments in space with several smaller biotechs sending their samples to space for manufacturing (such as LambdaVision) or scientific understanding (Emulate Bio’s project on the blood brain barrier; read more here). In some cases, 2D cell cultures allow for behavior much more akin to how entire organs behave, giving an opening for a different mode of increasing predictive validity of screens. However, the full promise of life science in space has not been realized because of cost. Space also provides a portal to better understanding of bone loss and muscle atrophy diseases since this happens prematurely without regimented exercise schedules. However, the expense to get to space, secure space on the international space station (ISS), and get people to take care of the experiments is considerable. Given the valuable research and manufacturing opportunity in space, we think this will be the first bio labs to be end-to-end automated. In a future where we’re traveling to space more frequently and have more facilities than the ISS in space the cost could drop significantly. It could drop even more if experiments could be conducted without an expensive astronaut tending cells. A few companies that have seen and built towards this vision are Lunar Outpost, a Blue Origin Partner, and Yuri Gravity. (Read our short-form thesis about the celestial world of bio in space here!)
The arctic and antarctic poles
The concept of automated laboratories located in the arctic or antarctic regions may seem futuristic, but it is becoming increasingly possible with advancements in laboratory robots that can be remotely operated. As previously mentioned in this article, a major cost for R&D is renting or owning real estate in locations like San Francisco, Boston and other parts of the world where it is easy to hire laboratory workforce. We envision a future where fully automated, remotely operated labs would flourish in locations like the north and south pole for a few reasons below:
Cost effective real estate to build large-scale laboratories
Lower cost of sample storage & cryo-freezing since the atmospheric temperature at the poles is already below freezing
Lower chances of contamination from humans, animals and general pollutants in human habitats
Stable and controlled environments for conducting experiments with little human intervention
Potential to explore new areas of research in extreme environments
Inevitably, there are also some potential drawbacks to automated labs built at the poles. One concern is the reliability of the technology, particularly in extreme conditions. Maintaining and repairing the equipment in an automated lab could be challenging in areas that are difficult to access or prone to severe weather events. Additionally, automated labs would likely require significant initial investment and ongoing maintenance costs, making them expensive to implement. Despite these challenges, the potential benefits of automated labs in the North and South Poles are significant. The ability to conduct research in extreme conditions without exposing human researchers to risk, the reduced need for human presence in remote locations, and the potential for new areas of research all make automated labs an exciting possibility for the future of scientific exploration. Research efforts such as the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) already has an outpost and could serve as a stepping stone for further facilities and infrastructure development.
Biohacking vs. DeSci
There’s conceptual tension between the futures of biohacking and decentralized science. In the biohacking future we take control of our bodies and environments and do science in our homes and on ourselves (Jo Zayner has been especially candid in her self-experimentation journey). As the cost of science continues to decrease and its experiments increase in salience (treating to curing disease) there will undoubtedly be communities that take these advancements into their own hands. This has manifested in sequencing the microbiome of rivers (s/o to Andre Holzer and co. at PuntSeq; https://elifesciences.org/articles/61504) or in trad synbio hacking elegantly shown with Sebastian S. Cocioba.
Biohacking, in many ways, is decentralized science.
Lab automation has not come to research biohacking/Blue Soup labs like Sebastian’s yet and maybe they never will. We hope that biohacking will only increase in prevalence but see those of us living in small flats or outside of the radius of Genspace as a major impediment to large-scale adoption.
However true economies of scale and dirt cheap science needs robust infrastructure (for now). Because of this there will be an increasing number of CRO’s (which will be based in automation) and catering to citizen scientists. However, first principles lab design might lead to cheap modular labs that could be decentralized to individuals. This is a space we’re actively watching!
So what’s stopping people?
It’s easy to get caught up in the vision but some labs can actually be less efficient if automation methods aren’t implemented correctly. The most tangible thing you can do now is fully understand the experiment or project and what exact constraints (space, budget, time) and goals you have in automating the pipeline. We’re not the first to conclude that repetitive tasks such as liquid handling and colony picking (especially for at scale/later stage work) are the first parts of the biology lab to be automated. However, we might be the first people to tell you that your long-term DNA storage might be in the Arctic! There’s tremendous potential here and only the beginning. Ironically this post did not even mention many of the new companies and tools out there that are facilitating this transition. We save our thoughts, observations, and compiling here for another post that should be in your inbox in no time. Do reach out if you’re interested/are already in building in this space!
Many thanks to co-author, Vega Shah! Vega is bio+software influencer (Twitter), product manager, bioinformatician, and biologist. Her experience spans Dotmatics, January AI, and Isolation Bio. Learn more about Vega Shah here.
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As always, inspiring writing! Some comments:
In part 1, replace the word “research” with “manufacturing”; it led me to an interesting comparison on the how the supply chain pressures of today are illuminating vulnerabilities that are leading to onshoring and co-location of management and labor. If making ventilators is deemed to be in the national interest, we could see how bio manufacturing and various forms of research could be deemed strategic and restricted to domestic locations. This doesn’t invalidate the point about moving lab space and automating repetitive activities to lower cost, less dense geos. Totally agreed that makes a lot of sense.
As you wrote so compellingly about research in space and at the poles, it led me to reflect on how and where we allocated R&D efforts. R&D can quickly become bloat and strategic inefficiency. How do novel environments like space and the poles start to make sense for corporate R&D? I think there’s more the government could do here. I know Varda recently won some $XXM grant from the US government for space experiences with bio. What else could do Western biomedical research institutions be doing to advance bold models of research? Just a thought.
I think there’s something here with autonomous labs. I just can’t figure out if it’s “faster horse” or truly “motor vehicle”.