Research Services Core (RSC)

National Center For Advancing Translational Sciences

Investigators

Linked publications, trials & patents

Abstract

1. Automation a. Two accepted phase 1 proposals for an Automated Flask Cleaning device design. 2 accepted phase 2 SBIR proposals for Augmented Reality for rare diseases. Both of these successfully completed phases 1 and have submit proposals to continue to phase 2. This will greatly enhance our continued efforts in laboratory sustainability. b. Instrumentation and Automation scheduling site stats – Automation Scheduling had a total of 1 reservations, 185 protocols were run, 80+ total users registered. Instrumentation site had a total of 112 reservations for stand-alone devices (limited to overflow equipment from Outlook but expanding), there were also 133 maintenance requests to report issues on equipment (increasing) with 200+ registered users. c. 10 complex robotic platforms (ranging from the Primary screening robot to the fully automated BSL-3 system) and at least 250 pieces of regularly used equipment comprised of pintool transfer devices, solenoid valve small volume liquid dispensers, bulk dispensers and washers, acoustic transfer devices, robotic arms, incubators, centrifuges, plate sealers and peelers are maintained by RSC saving hundreds of thousands of dollars. d. Collaboration with DPI ETB members to help design, build and implement an automation-friendly instrument to measure electrical signals from plated neuronal tissues along with custom software for operation. Design and testing phase are complete and instrument has already been used for an assay, manuscript and patent are in preparation. 2. Compound Management a. Automated tube reformatting and acoustic dispensing system designed, built custom for, and guided by NCATS compound management cutting edge needs. A straight from storage tube acoustic dispenser and a complex liquid handling platform was integrated with our compound store along with necessary peripherals for plate prep/preservation and decapping/capping capabilities to fully automated tube picking through assay ready plate creation while eliminating extra intermediate pipetting steps therefore reducing plastic consumables by 1/3 to 1/2 depending on the process. Installation, site acceptance testing, and training complete. System is partially in use for automated plating of solutions. b. 2,349 FOTS orders were filled for DPI biology groups and collaborators. Compounds requested 82% internally and 18% externally delivered around the country. c. 100,446 compounds were registered by Compound Management with just over 88,000 of these being novel structures to our inventory. Two new compound libraries were created using natural products from the NCI Natural Products Branch led by Dr. Barry O’Keefe. These libraries are being used for screening across multiple DPI groups. d. 4,204 plates produced (acoustic – 60% and non-acoustic – 40%) this year. 55% were for Drug Combination, 39% for follow up plates, and 6% were qHTS style plates. 3. Automated Cell Technologies a. CellTrio System: RoboCell designed, custom built, and guided by NCATS cell technologies cutting edge needs to increase capability as well as scale up from existing Sartorius CompacT SelecT units. Includes flask handling, decappng/capping, detector, confluency inspection/imaging, complex liquid handling and dispensing as well as storage. This has now been installed and validated at NCATS and is being used in production to support stem cell projects requiring compound dispenses and screening. b. Five robotic high throughput biomanufacturing and functional differentiation processes of hiPSCs for Nocicenptors, Astrocytes, Trophoblasts, Hypothalamic neurons as well as adaptation of patient iPSCs in system and clean up. Supports internal (Stem Cell, 3D Tissue Bioprinting, etc) and numerous external collaborators. Involves direct involvement and feedback from scientists on process and evaluation. c. Nociceptors cell bank generated from 12 iPSC lines into 792 cryovials containing 5M cells/vial = 3.96B Nociceptor cells. Collaborators include Boston Children’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Department of Neurobiology, Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Department of Cancer Biology, and Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, The University of Oxford. Astrocytes cell bank generated from 14 iPSC lines into 392 cryovials containing 0.4M – 10M cells/vial = ~2.5B Astrocyte cells. Hypothalamic neurons generated from 3 iPSC lines into 91 cryovials containing 5M cells/vial = 455M Hypothalamic neurons. Public Health Impact Statement High-throughput robots help researchers run screening experiments quickly and efficiently, producing results in one week that would take a scientist 12 years to conduct manually. At NCATS, the Research Services Core (RSC) team works to facilitate these robots to test thousands of potential drugs and drug combinations, environmental chemicals, and other experimental compounds to gain insights about a wide range of human diseases.