Jump to content

Opentrons

Edit links
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Erictleung (talk | contribs) at 22:41, 2 February 2024 (Fixed typo). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.
Opentrons Labworks Inc.
Company typePrivate
Industry
Founded2014; 11 years ago (2014)
Founder
  • Nicholas Wagner
  • Will Canine
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)

Opentrons Labwords 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]

Products

  • 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][9][10] 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,[11] 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.[12] Its open-source and accessible API allows it to interact with potential AI tools.[13]
A person using Opentrons liquid handling robot inside one of the OpenCell laboratories.

History

The organization originated out from Genspace, a community biology laboratory in Brooklyn, New York. The startup launched out of HAXLR8TR in China, and then ran a successful Kickstarter campaign in 2014.[2] The campaign successfully helped build a machine that inserts DNA inside E. coli.[14] In 2016, Opentrons was part of Y Combinator's Winter cohort of startups.[15]

Impact

Opentrons robots have had a variety of uses in the scientific and DIY community. 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]

Subsidiaries

As a company, Opentrons has a number of subsidiaries.[17]

  • Opentrons Robotics – business unit for user-friendly lab automation
  • Pandemic Response Lab (PRL) – provides diagnostic lab services to health systems across the US
  • Neochromosome (Neo) – acquired in March 2021, Neo creates genome-scale cell engineering solutions for therapeutics
  • Zenith AI – acquired in June 2021,[18] Zenith AI brings no-code AI and modern machine learning to the platform

See also

References

  1. ^ 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. ^ Walker, Kenneth T.; Donora, Matthew; Thomas, Anthony; Phillips, Alexander James; Ramgoolam, Krishma; Pilch, Kjara S; Oberacker, Phil; Jurkowski, Tomasz Piotr; Gosman, Rares Marius; Fleiss, Aubin; Perkins, Alex; MacKenzie, Neil; Zuckerman, Mark; Danovi, Davide; Steiner, Helene; Meany, Thomas (2020). "CONTAIN:An open-source shipping container laboratory optimised for automated COVID-19 diagnostics" (PDF). Pre-print. doi:10.1101/2020.05.20.106625. S2CID 218859877.
  9. ^ Villanueva-Cañas, José Luis; Gonzalez-Roca, Eva; Unanue, Aitor Gastaminza; Titos, Esther; Martínez Yoldi, Miguel Julián; Vergara Gómez, Andrea; Puig Butillé, Joan Antón (2020). "ROBOCOV: An affordable open-source robotic platform for SARS-CoV-2 testing by RT-qPCR" (PDF). Pre-print. doi:10.1101/2020.06.11.140285. S2CID 219689351.
  10. ^ 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.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: article number as page number (link)
  11. ^ "Opentrons OT-2 Reference Model". GitHub. Retrieved 2023-12-02.
  12. ^ Heater, Brian (2023-05-22). "Opentrons aims to democratize lab access with its Flex robot". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2024-01-31.
  13. ^ "Opentrons Flex™ Lab Robot Launches to Accelerate Bioautomation Across Thousands of Life Science Experiments". News-Medical. 2023-05-22. Retrieved 2024-01-31.
  14. ^ Buhr, Sarah (2016-02-01). "OpenTrons Aims To Be The 'PC' Of Biotech Labs". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2024-02-02.
  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. doi:10.1038/s41586-023-06792-0. ISSN 1476-4687.
  17. ^ "Opentrons Announces $200 Million Series C Round Led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2". www.businesswire.com. 2021-09-23. Retrieved 2024-01-31.
  18. ^ 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.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Opentrons&oldid=1202505023"