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Opentrons

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Opentrons Labworks Inc.
Company typePrivate
Industry
Founded2014; 10 years ago (2014)
Founder
  • Chiu Chau
  • Will Canine
  • Nicholas Wagner
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 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]

Products

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Current:

  • OT-2 – The 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.[2][3] 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,[4] with no details on the internals, such that it no longer complies with current open hardware standards.[5][6][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.[7] Its open-source and accessible API allows it to interact with potential AI tools.[8]
  • Flex Prep – Similar to the Flex, the Flex Prep was released in 2024 and provides a no-code software for setting up pipetting tasks and executing that workflow through the Flex Prep touchscreen.[9]

Discontinued:

  • 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.[10][11] 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,[5][6] however, editable CAD files were not released. It is no longer commercially available,[12] though at least one replication was attempted.[13]
A person using Opentrons liquid handling robot inside one of the OpenCell laboratories.

History

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The company originated from Genspace, a community biology laboratory in Brooklyn, New York. Will Canine, a biohacker and former Occupy Wall Street organizer, partnered with Nicholas Wagner and Chiu Chau as his eventual co-founders who he found from a DIY-bio listserve.[14]

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.[10][14] They show their machine inserting DNA inside E. coli after their campaign successfully gets funded.[15] 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.[16]

In 2016, Opentrons was part of Y Combinator's Winter cohort of startups.[17]

Impact

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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.[18]

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Opentrons helped set up the Pandemic Response Lab (PRL), a sequencing facility located in Queens, New York.[19] 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.[20] Institutions that made use of Opentrons' robots for COVID-19 testing include: Mayo Clinic, Harvard, Stanford, Caltech, MIT, and BioNTech.[14]

Subsidiaries

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As a company, Opentrons has a number of subsidiaries.[21]

  • 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,[22] Zenith AI brings no-code AI and modern machine learning to the platform

See also

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References

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  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. ^ 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.
  3. ^ Jonguitud-Borrego, Nestor; Malcı, Koray; Anand, Mihir; Baluku, Erikan; Webb, Calum; Liang, Lungang; Barba-Ostria, Carlos; Guaman, Linda P.; Hui, Liu; Rios-Solis, Leonardo (2022). "High—throughput and automated screening for COVID-19". Frontiers in Medical Technology. 4. doi:10.3389/fmedt.2022.969203. ISSN 2673-3129. PMC 9521367. PMID 36188187.
  4. ^ "Opentrons OT-2 Reference Model". GitHub. Retrieved 2023-12-02.
  5. ^ a b "Open Source Hardware Definition (OSHWA)". www.oshwa.org. 2012-05-26. Retrieved 2023-12-02.
  6. ^ a b "DIN SPEC 3105 OSH - Open Source Hardware - Open Source". din.one. Retrieved 2023-12-02.
  7. ^ Heater, Brian (2023-05-22). "Opentrons aims to democratize lab access with its Flex robot". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2024-01-31.
  8. ^ "Opentrons Flex™ Lab Robot Launches to Accelerate Bioautomation Across Thousands of Life Science Experiments". News-Medical. 2023-05-22. Retrieved 2024-01-31.
  9. ^ "Opentrons introduces Flex Prep: A no-code robot offering the simplicity of a pipette with the versatility of a liquid handler". Business Wire. September 12, 2024. Retrieved 2024-10-02.
  10. ^ 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.
  11. ^ "DIYBio Comes of Age". Wired. 2014-11-07. Retrieved 2020-10-10.
  12. ^ "Sunsetting the OT-One". Opentrons.
  13. ^ Jockey, Pipette (2018-01-03). "Making a Opentrons compatible liquid handling robot". Pipette Jockey. Retrieved 2023-12-02.
  14. ^ 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.
  15. ^ Buhr, Sarah (2016-02-01). "OpenTrons Aims To Be The 'PC' Of Biotech Labs". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2024-02-02.
  16. ^ Drenik, Gary. "How This Startup Is Using Lab Automation To Transform Life Sciences And Healthcare". Forbes. Retrieved 2024-02-13.
  17. ^ 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.
  18. ^ 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.
  19. ^ 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.
  20. ^ 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.
  21. ^ "Opentrons Announces $200 Million Series C Round Led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2". www.businesswire.com. 2021-09-23. Retrieved 2024-01-31.
  22. ^ 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.
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