IT Solutions
Can Automation Help With Drug Discovery?
Mar 10 2021
The rapid advancement of technology is infiltrating all areas of medical research, including pharmaceuticals. In particular, automation of laborious laboratory processes can yield a plethora of benefits for drug discovery and development, including efficiency, accuracy and reproducibility. Here’s a brief run through some of the more important ways in which automation can aid the pharmaceuticals industry:
Time savings
The status quo of laboratory research sees highly skilled PhD students and postdocs spending far too much time performing menial tasks to conduct experiments, create hypotheses and reach conclusions. However, the heavy lifting of lab work can easily be delegated to robots, leaving humans more time to tackle the really challenging aspects of drug discovery such as idea formulation, development and discussion. Instead of wasting countless hours on repetitive lab work, they will have the time and freedom to devote to intellectual pursuits.
Protocol adherence
In a lab experiment which asks for a sample to be mixed, that instruction could be interpreted in any number of ways by the individual scientists in question, such as shaking, stirring or vortexing, to name just three. However, using a robot to conduct the experiment will create and adhere to a rigid protocol, such as stirring the sample at 100 revolutions per minute for exactly two minutes and at precisely two degrees Celsius. This kind of specificity is crucial in a lab setting where the conditions of an experiment must be exactly replicated in order to produce reliable results.
Data capture
Traditionally, scientists would record the data they had observed in handwritten notes. While drug discovery has changed over the years to involve the use of computers and virtual data more often, the precise way in which one researcher captures data is almost guaranteed to differ from that of his colleagues, even within the same facility. By contrast, the automation of data capture ensures that precise details are recorded every single time, including such important metrics as temperatures, humidity, timings and more. This makes it much easier to reproduce the experiment in its entirety in the future.
Data stewardship
At present, many labs store and share data via USB sticks or other hardware. The naming and sharing conventions can differ significantly from institution to institution – and even from scientist to scientist within the same institution. By using automation to track and store all data online in one, centralised location that is accessible to everyone wherever they are in the world, researchers can greatly facilitate collaboration on projects, thus leading to better outcomes and expedited drug discovery and development processes.
Digital Edition
International Labmate Buyers Guide 2022
June 2022
In This Edition Evaluation of Recovery of Basic Analytes Using a Mixed-Mode Strong Cation Exchange SPE Microplate by HPLC-MS The Benefits of SEC-MALLS in Biopharmaceutical Applications...
View all digital editions
Events
Jun 28 2022 Ljubljana, Slovenia
AACC Annual Meeting & Clinical Lab Expo
Jul 24 2022 Chicago, IL, USA
Jul 25 2022 Virtual event
ACS National Meeting & Expo, Fall 2022
Aug 21 2022 Chicago, IL, USA & Online
Aug 22 2022 Frankfurt, Germany