aBioBot is a collaborative project between artists, scientists and engineers to create a bio robotic lab assistant that automates the processes and procedures of working with biological media.
The project was funded by an San Francisco Venture Capital firm and the approaches taken were successful.
We had a dream — a dream of a lab assistant that could eliminate the repetition and errors from bio procedures and protocols so more time would be spent on science and in my case art making using biological media.
We intend to realize a dream with a robotic lab assistant that offers:
- Reproducible science
- Easy use
- Vision, sensing, and feedback
- Open hardware, open API
- To do the tedious lab work for you
…so you can get back to the intersections of Art and Science with Biological Media
We incubated at the biotech accelerator IndieBio located in San Francisco, CA.
It has been an exciting adventure combining the unique talents of our team in creating this new product against the backdrop of an accelerator.
Process: Find a stable platform to hack.
I chose a Type A Machine rapid prototyping system as it was robust and open source and would allow me to hack into the system.
I began by looking at the gantry and how I could directly hack into that to allow the attachment of an eppendorf.
Visuals of how system was to look. Ideal versions.
We are exhaustively chronicling commonly used laboratory protocols for automation and building systems and processes that guide you through the procedures.
These include DNA extraction, the ELISA assay, oligos-based assay library preparation, PCR type experiments (e.g., qRT-PCR)
and assorted assays (cell toxicity, ChIP for protein-DNA binding, Crispr-cas9, GFP tags, Serial dilutions. etc.).
