Life Science Labs Can't Be Automated, But They Can Be Orchestrated

The Harry Glorikian Show

Wet labs at life science companies look and work the same pretty much everywhere. They're full of incubators, refrigerators, centrifuges, liquid handlers, gene sequencers, DNA and RNA synthesizers, and all sorts of other complex equipment. And a lot of these machines are automated—but the larger workflow in a life sciences R&D lab is very much not automated. For the most part it’s individual researchers who decide how and when to use each piece of equipment, and individuals who move samples and materials back and forth between the machines. And that's a problem, because if you’re trying to collect evidence for a scientific paper or a regulatory filing or trying to manufacture a product that’s verifiably safe, you need to make sure that the same procedure gets carried out exactly the same way every time.

Our guest this week, Artificial CEO David Fuller, believes that life sciences labs will always revolve around manual labor, but thinks there’s a way to orchestrate the process more precisely. Artificial makes software that allows lab managers to create what he calls a digital twin of their entire laboratory. Inside this digital twin, data structures track what’s happening with each piece of lab equipment and keep them in sync, even if they’re from different manufacturers. The software provides what Fuller calls “a single pane of glass that makes it easier to see the state of the equipment and the science as it's running in your lab”…meaning what’s happening, why it’s happening, and what errors may be cropping up. Humans will always stay in the loop, but Fuller says the benefit for companies who orchestrate their labs in this way is that the data and the products coming out of the lab will be more consistent. Which will be even more important as laboratories start to act more like factories, where a lot of the actual production of biologic drugs or other materials happens.

For a full transcript of this episode, please visit our show page at http://www.glorikian.com/podcast

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