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Opentrons

Summary

Opentrons Labworks, Inc. (or Opentrons) is a biotechnology company that manufactures liquid handling robots that use open-source software, which at one point used open-source hardware but no longer does.[citation needed] Their robots can be used by scientists to manipulate small volumes of liquids for the purpose of undertaking biochemical or chemical reactions. Currently, they offer the OT-2 and Flex robots. These robots are used primarily by researchers and scientists interested in DIY biology, but they are increasingly being used by other biologists.[1]

Opentrons Labworks Inc.
Company typePrivate
Industry
Founded2014; 10 years ago (2014)
Founder
  • Nicholas Wagner
  • Will Canine
  • Chiu Chau
Headquarters
Long Island City, New York
,
United States
Key people
Jon Brennan-Badal (CEO)
Products
  • OT-1
  • OT-2
  • Flex
Number of employees
328 (2023) Edit this on Wikidata
Websiteopentrons.com
male presenting individual with a white mask over their mouth and nose looking at the insides of the liquid handling robot
Commissioning of an Opentrons robot in the Regional Hospital of Málaga (2020)

Products edit

  • OT-1 – The OpenTrons OT-1 was the result of a crowdfunding campaign on the Kickstarter platform and was released in 2015 for $2,000.[2][3] This robot employed adapters to actuate handheld micropipettes. The release of the OT-1 marked the first commercial open source liquid handling robot in the life science industry. It was also the last in the series to adhere to open hardware standards,[4][5] however, editable CAD files were not released. It is no longer commercially available,[6] though at least one replication was attempted.[7]
  • OT-2 – The OpenTrons OT-2 was released in 2018 and has seen utilization as one of the tools that researchers are leveraging in the fight against COVID-19.[8] The OT-2 and later products, including its electronic micropipettes and hardware modules, are closed source (proprietary) hardware. Only coarse CAD files for the enclosure have been released,[9] with no details on the internals, such that it no longer complies with current open hardware standards.[4][5][original research?] The software remains open source.
  • Flex – Successor to the OT-2, the Flex was released in 2023, "measures two feet by two feet by two feet", and is purchased with a one-time cost rather than a robot as a service (RaaS) subscription.[10] Its open-source and accessible API allows it to interact with potential AI tools.[11]
 
A person using Opentrons liquid handling robot inside one of the OpenCell laboratories.

History edit

The company originated from Genspace, a community biology laboratory in Brooklyn, New York. Will Canine, a biohacker and former Occupy Wall Street organizer, reached out to a DIY-bio listserve to find Nicholas Wagner and Chiu Chau as his eventual co-founders.[12]

In 2014, the startup officially launched with financial backing from HAXLR8TR, a hardware accelerator in Shenzhen, China. In late 2014, they launch a Kickstarter campaign.[2][12] They show their machine inserting DNA inside E. coli after their campaign successfully gets funded.[13] Jonathan Brennan-Badal, who was VP of strategy at ComiXology and a board member of Genspace, joined Opentrons in 2014 and is the current CEO.[14]

In 2016, Opentrons was part of Y Combinator's Winter cohort of startups.[15]

Impact edit

Opentrons robots have had a variety of uses in the scientific and DIY community. Scientists at UCSD modified an existing OT-1 robot to automate adding in reagents and imaging their cell signaling experiments.[1] Scientists at Carnegie Mellon University used the OT-2, Opentrons Python API, and OpenAI's GPT-4 to autonomously design, plan, and perform experiments.[16]

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Opentrons helped set up the Pandemic Response Lab (PRL), a sequencing facility located in Queens, New York.[17] Opentrons' robots at the PRL helped speed up turnaround time for COVID-19 testing, going from 7 to 14 days to 12 hours, and reducing costs from $2,000 to under $28.[18] Institutions that made use of Opentrons' robots for COVID-19 testing include: Mayo Clinic, Harvard, Stanford, Caltech, MIT, and BioNTech.[12]

Subsidiaries edit

As a company, Opentrons has a number of subsidiaries.[19]

  • Opentrons Robotics – business unit for user-friendly lab automation
  • Pandemic Response Lab (PRL) – in partnership with NYU Langone Health, provides diagnostic lab services to health systems across the US, and as of December 31, 2022 has shut down
  • Neochromosome (Neo) – acquired in March 2021, Neo creates genome-scale cell engineering solutions for therapeutics
  • Zenith AI – acquired in June 2021,[20] Zenith AI brings no-code AI and modern machine learning to the platform

See also edit

References edit

  1. ^ a b May, Mike (2019-05-20). "A DIY approach to automating your lab". Nature. 569 (7757): 587–588. Bibcode:2019Natur.569..587M. doi:10.1038/d41586-019-01590-z. PMID 31110319.
  2. ^ a b Wohlsen, Marcus. "This Robot Could Make Creating New Life Forms As Easy As Coding An App". Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Retrieved 2024-02-02.
  3. ^ "DIYBio Comes of Age". Wired. 2014-11-07. Retrieved 2020-10-10.
  4. ^ a b "Open Source Hardware Definition (OSHWA)". www.oshwa.org. 2012-05-26. Retrieved 2023-12-02.
  5. ^ a b "DIN SPEC 3105 OSH - Open Source Hardware - Open Source". din.one. Retrieved 2023-12-02.
  6. ^ "Sunsetting the OT-One". Opentrons.
  7. ^ Jockey, Pipette (2018-01-03). "Making a Opentrons compatible liquid handling robot". Pipette Jockey. Retrieved 2023-12-02.
  8. ^ Maia Chagas, Andre; Molloy, Jennifer C.; Prieto-Godino, Lucia L.; Baden, Tom (2020). "Leveraging open hardware to alleviate the burden of COVID-19 on global health systems". PLOS Biology. 18 (4): e3000730. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.3000730. ISSN 1545-7885. PMC 7182255. PMID 32330124.
  9. ^ "Opentrons OT-2 Reference Model". GitHub. Retrieved 2023-12-02.
  10. ^ Heater, Brian (2023-05-22). "Opentrons aims to democratize lab access with its Flex robot". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2024-01-31.
  11. ^ "Opentrons Flex™ Lab Robot Launches to Accelerate Bioautomation Across Thousands of Life Science Experiments". News-Medical. 2023-05-22. Retrieved 2024-01-31.
  12. ^ a b c Baumgaertner, Emily (2021-10-15). "The untold story of how a robot army waged war on COVID-19". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2024-02-13.
  13. ^ Buhr, Sarah (2016-02-01). "OpenTrons Aims To Be The 'PC' Of Biotech Labs". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2024-02-02.
  14. ^ Drenik, Gary. "How This Startup Is Using Lab Automation To Transform Life Sciences And Healthcare". Forbes. Retrieved 2024-02-13.
  15. ^ Constine, Josh; Dickey, Megan Rose; Buhr, Sarah (2016-03-24). "Here are the 59 startups that demoed at Y Combinator Winter '16 Demo Day 2". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2024-02-02.
  16. ^ Boiko, Daniil A.; MacKnight, Robert; Kline, Ben; Gomes, Gabe (2023-12-20). "Autonomous chemical research with large language models". Nature. 624 (7992): 570–578. Bibcode:2023Natur.624..570B. doi:10.1038/s41586-023-06792-0. ISSN 1476-4687. PMC 10733136. PMID 38123806.
  17. ^ Koons, Cynthia (2021-07-21). "More Variants Are Coming, and the U.S. Isn't Ready to Track Them". Bloomberg Businessweek. Archived from the original on 2021-07-21. Retrieved 2024-02-13.
  18. ^ Molot, Clara (2021-09-23). "SoftBank Invests in Robotics Company Behind NYC Covid Testing". Bloomberg News. Archived from the original on 2022-04-29. Retrieved 2024-02-13.
  19. ^ "Opentrons Announces $200 Million Series C Round Led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2". www.businesswire.com. 2021-09-23. Retrieved 2024-01-31.
  20. ^ Zenith. "UK Applied AI Powerhouse, Zenith AI emerges from stealth mode and is acquired by Opentrons Labworks". www.prnewswire.co.uk. Retrieved 2024-01-31.

External links edit

  • Opentrons' Y Combinator profile

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