Opentrons Labworks, Inc. (or Opentrons) is a biotechnology company that manufactures liquid handling robots that use

open-source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...

software, which at one point used

open-source hardware Open-source hardware (OSH, OSHW) consists of physical artifact (software development), artifacts of technology designed and offered by the open-design movement. Both free and open-source software (FOSS) and open-source hardware are created by th ...

but no longer does. 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.

Products

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 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. In January 2020, the disease spread worldwide, resulting in the COVID-19 pandemic. The symptoms of COVID‑19 can vary but often include fever ...

. The OT-2 and later products, including its electronic micropipettes and hardware modules, are closed source (proprietary) hardware. Only coarse

CAD Computer-aided design (CAD) is the use of computers (or ) to aid in the creation, modification, analysis, or optimization of a design. This software is used to increase the productivity of the designer, improve the quality of design, improve c ...

files for the enclosure have been released, with no details on the internals, such that it no longer complies with current open hardware standards. 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 Robot as a service or robotics as a service (RaaS) is a cloud computing unit that facilitates the seamless integration of robot and embedded devices into Web and cloud computing environment. In terms of service-oriented architecture (SOA), a RaaS un ...

(RaaS) subscription. Its open-source and accessible

API An application programming interface (API) is a connection between computers or between computer programs. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that describes how to build ...

allows it to interact with potential AI tools. * ''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. Discontinued: * ''OT-1'' – The OpenTrons OT-1 was the result of a

crowdfunding Crowdfunding is the practice of funding a project or venture by raising money from a large number of people, typically via the internet. Crowdfunding is a form of crowdsourcing and Alternative Finance, alternative finance, to fund projects "withou ...

campaign on the

Kickstarter Kickstarter, PBC is an American Benefit corporation, public benefit corporation based in Brooklyn, New York City, that maintains a global crowdfunding platform focused on creativity. The company's stated mission is to "help bring creative project ...

platform and was released in 2015 for $2,000. 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, however, editable CAD files were not released. It is no longer commercially available, though at least one replication was attempted. Insideopencelllab

History

The company originated from Genspace, a community biology laboratory in

Brooklyn, New York Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...

. 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. In 2014, the startup officially launched with financial backing from HAXLR8TR, a hardware accelerator in

Shenzhen, China Shenzhen is a prefecture-level city in the province of Guangdong, China. A Special economic zones of China, special economic zone, it is located on the east bank of the Pearl River (China), Pearl River estuary on the central coast of Guangdong ...

. In late 2014, they launch a

campaign. They show their machine inserting DNA inside ''

E. coli ''Escherichia coli'' ( )Wells, J. C. (2000) Longman Pronunciation Dictionary. Harlow ngland Pearson Education Ltd. is a gram-negative, facultative anaerobic, rod-shaped, coliform bacterium of the genus ''Escherichia'' that is commonly foun ...

a''fter their campaign successfully gets funded. Jonathan Brennan-Badal, who was VP of strategy at

ComiXology Iconology Inc., d/b/a ComiXology (styled comiXology), was a cloud-based digital distribution platform for comics owned by Amazon, with over 200 million comic downloads . At its height it offered a selection of more than 100,000 comic books, g ...

and a board member of Genspace, joined Opentrons in 2014 and is the current CEO. In 2016, Opentrons was part of Y Combinator's Winter cohort of startups.

Impact

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

UCSD The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego in communications material, formerly and colloquially UCSD) is a public land-grant research university in San Diego, California, United States. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing ...

modified an existing OT-1 robot to automate adding in reagents and imaging their

cell signaling In biology, cell signaling (cell signalling in British English) is the Biological process, process by which a Cell (biology), cell interacts with itself, other cells, and the environment. Cell signaling is a fundamental property of all Cell (biol ...

experiments. Scientists at

Carnegie Mellon University Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The institution was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools. In 1912, it became the Carnegie Institu ...

used the OT-2, Opentrons Python API, and OpenAI's

GPT-4 Generative Pre-trained Transformer 4 (GPT-4) is a multimodal large language model trained and created by OpenAI and the fourth in its series of GPT foundation models. It was launched on March 14, 2023, and made publicly available via the p ...

to autonomously design, plan, and perform experiments. During the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

, Opentrons helped set up the Pandemic Response Lab (PRL), a sequencing facility located in

Queens, New York Queens is the largest by area of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. Located near the western end of Long Island, it is bordered by the ...

. 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. Institutions that made use of Opentrons' robots for COVID-19 testing include:

Mayo Clinic Mayo Clinic () is a Nonprofit organization, private American Academic health science centre, academic Medical centers in the United States, medical center focused on integrated health care, healthcare, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science ...

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher lear ...

Stanford Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth governor of and th ...

Caltech The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech) is a private university, private research university in Pasadena, California, United States. The university is responsible for many modern scientific advancements and is among a small g ...

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of modern technology and sc ...

, and

BioNTech BioNTech SE ( ; or short for Biopharmaceutical New Technologies) is a German multinational biotechnology company headquartered in Mainz that develops immunotherapies and vaccines, particularly for cancer and infectious diseases. The compan ...

Subsidiaries

As a company, Opentrons has a number of subsidiaries. * ''Opentrons Robotics'' – business unit for user-friendly lab automation *
Pandemic Response Lab (PRL)
' – in partnership with

NYU Langone Health NYU Langone Health is an integrated Health system, academic health system located in New York City, New York, United States. The health system consists of the New York University Grossman School of Medicine, NYU Grossman School of Medicine and NY ...

, 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,{{Cite web , last = Zenith , title = UK Applied AI Powerhouse, Zenith AI emerges from stealth mode and is acquired by Opentrons Labworks , url = https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/uk-applied-ai-powerhouse-zenith-ai-emerges-from-stealth-mode-and-is-acquired-by-opentrons-labworks-841748962.html , access-date = 2024-01-31 , website = www.prnewswire.co.uk , language = en Zenith AI brings

no-code No-code development platforms (NCDPs) allow creating application software through graphical user interfaces and configuration instead of traditional computer programming based on writing code. As with low-code development platforms, it is meant ...

AI and modern

machine learning Machine learning (ML) is a field of study in artificial intelligence concerned with the development and study of Computational statistics, statistical algorithms that can learn from data and generalise to unseen data, and thus perform Task ( ...

to the platform

References

External links