Note: this article required conversations with a lot of people. A (hopefully) exhaustive, randomized list of everyone whose thoughts contributed to the article: Lachlan Munroe (Head of Automation at DTU Biosustain), Max Hodak (CEO of Science, former founder of Transcriptic), D.J. Kleinbaum (CEO of Emerald Cloud Labs), Keoni Gandall (former founder of Trilobio), Cristian Ponce (CEO of Tetsuwan Scientific), Brontë Kolar (CEO of Zeon Systems), Jason Kelly (CEO of Ginkgo Bioworks), Jun Axup Penman (COO of E11 Bio), Nish Bhat (current VC, ex-Color cofounder), Amulya Garimella (MIT PhD student), Shelby Newsad (VC at Compound), Michelle Lee (CEO of Medra), Charles Yang (Fellow at Renaissance Philanthropy), Chase Armer (Columbia PhD student), Ben Ray (current founder, ex-Retro Biosciences automation engineer), and Jake Feala (startup creation at Flagship Pioneering).

Introduction
Heuristics for lab robotics
1. There are box robots, and there are arm robots
2. Most lab protocols can be automated, they just often aren’t worth automating
3. You can improve lab robotics by improving the translation layer, the hardware layer, or the intelligence layer
4. All roads lead to Transcriptic
Conclusion

Introduction

I have never worked in a wet lab. The closest I’ve come to it was during my first semester of undergrad [...]

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Outline:

(01:56) Introduction

(04:33) Heuristics for lab robotics

(04:37) There are box robots, and there are arm robots

(12:40) Most lab protocols can be automated, they just often arent worth automating

(19:30) You can improve lab robotics by improving the translation layer, the hardware layer, or the intelligence layer

(35:16) All roads lead to Transcriptic

(48:43) Conclusion

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“Heuristics for lab robotics, and where its future may go” by Abhishaike Mahajan

LessWrong (30+ Karma)