Seeds are the new gold. What does that mean? Plant-based foods feed the ever-growing world population. But climate change, pests and diseases threaten plant breeding. Plant breeders need vast amounts of DNA to develop resistant seeds and make them available to agriculture. Synchron Lab has developed the "DNA Factory" for this purpose – automated with handling gantries, electric linear actuators, pneumatic grippers and sensors from Festo.
The system can extract up to 40,000 DNA samples in 24 hours. As a result, it meets the increasing demand in laboratory automation for high throughput. For a long time now the demand for DNA samples has been so high that has not been possible to employ enough laboratory assistants to supply these quantities. Not to mention the personnel costs. Thanks to the system, highly qualified laboratory assistants can concentrate on their core competence, analyzing results.
Manually, skilled laboratory assistants can perform DNA extraction of two microwell plates per day. Small automated benchtop systems achieve a volume of eight microwell plates per day. With the novel "DNA Factory" from Synchron Lab, a throughput of 400 microwell plates per day is possible. Only one operator is required to load and unload the microwell plates.
"Laboratories still approach automation with a certain amount of skepticism. Therefore, it was important that the lab personnel could always see what was going on in the system," explained Glenn Dukel, Project and Business Development Manager at Synchron Lab. For this reason, plant breeders were integrated in the development, and the operating software was made as intuitive as possible – for example with drag and drop elements.
The system extracts DNA from shredded plant material. The process begins with a microwell plate magazine that accommodates up to 400 plates – 200 for input and 200 for output. The Festo bar code reader SBSI scans all the microwell plates at the start of a run. Electric linear actuators of the type EGC in combination with the quarter turn actuator DRRD and the pneumatic gripper DHPS pick up the microwell plates and place them on workpiece carriers that move from one station to the next on a transport system.
To separate the DNA from other materials, coded metallic microspheres called magnetic beads are added to the lysate samples at the first station, to which the DNA attaches while the rest of the material floats in the microwell plates. For this purpose, a buffer solution of pure isopropanol is aspirated from rotary containers with coated silica magnet and pipetted into the microwell plates. This is how the process of DNA washing starts.
The pipetting heads are moved via an EXCH planar surface gantry in the X-axis and via the electric linear actuator EGC-HD with the necessary rigidity in the Z-axis. Here too electric drives with EMMT-AS servo motors ensure precise motion sequences. These servo motors are predestined for demanding and dynamic applications: They are characterized by very good controllability and path accuracy in positioning tasks. The space-saving one-cable solution reduces installation effort.
The second and third stations are used for the washing process. At the second station, the binder buffer solution is aspirated. The magnet forms a ring with the buffer solution. The DNA remains in the microwell plate.
At the third station, the isopropanol buffer solution frees the DNA from salts and ethanol. The dispense head VTOI from Festo is used for this. This is an efficiently controllable, 8-channel dispense head for microwell plates – equipped with only one valve for eight outlets. With VTOI, liquids in the smallest µL range can be dispensed and aspirated. The process is repeated four times.