Case Study

Synthace + SPT Labtech dragonfly® discovery
Space-fill DOE for assay development

Synthace and the dragonfly® discovery provided up to a 87% time saving for the entire process compared with using a pipetting robot or without using Synthace.

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At a glance:

94% time savings with automated data structuring
75% time savings in execution planning
98% savings in liquid handling time compared to an average pipetting robot
99.9% savings in tip usage compared to an average pipetting robot

SPT Labtech + Synthace

Overview

SPT Labtech and Synthace have joined forces to push the boundaries in physical execution of sophisticated Design of Experiment (DoE) campaigns. DoE investigations are extremely powerful experiments that enable the rapid optimisation of many inputs and parameters simultaneously. The ability to quickly and easily execute and analyse higher granularity, multifactorial characterisations of biological processes is particularly valuable to assay development groups, who are expected to work under time pressure with increasing modalities and more complexity without commensurate increases in resources.

Combining the speed and accuracy of SPT Labtech’s dragonfly^® discovery dispenser with the flexible planning and data aggregation capabilities of Synthace, we were able to characterise a spectrophotometric enzymatic assay using a space-filling DoE, totalling 3,456 runs for two sets of triplicates of 384 runs and the corresponding controls.

Key Findings

Synthace’s automated data structuring provided a 94% time saving, accelerating the user’s time to insight.
Synthace also provided a 75% time saving in execution planning.
dragonfly^® discovery provided a 98% saving in liquid handling time compared with an average pipetting robot.
dragonfly^® discovery further provided a 99.9% saving in tip usage compared with an average pipetting robot.
We demonstrate the ability to run thousands of runs of assay optimisation in a single day, opening up experimental possibilities that were previously intractable.

Introduction

Dragonfly® Discovery
for DoE Execution

Two key strengths of SPT Labtech’s dragonfly^®discovery dispenser make it an ideal liquid handler for executing sophisticated DoE in assay development, such as the space-filling design selected for this case study.

Having created and exported the design file for the space-filling DoE from a standard statistical software (JMP), the campaign was carried out via Synthace on the dragonfly^® discovery, according to the one-day process.

Results

Full characterisation of a spectrophotometric assay with DoE

A sophisticated DoE campaign was successfully carried out using a combination of Synthace with the dragonfly^® discovery according to the generalised one-day automated DoE process. Totalling 3,456 runs for two sets of triplicates of 384 runs and the corresponding blanks, this campaign provided a wealth of data for future assay optimisations.

Physical execution of space-filling DoE campaigns of this size would not have been possible without this combination of state-of-the-art hardware and software. Synthace and the dragonfly^® discovery provided up to a 87% time saving for the entire process compared with using a pipetting robot or without using Synthace.

Synthace + SPT Labtech dragonfly® discovery Space-fill DOE for assay development