An overview of automated biotechnology screening

摘要

Laboratory automation for many years has contributed to increased productivity in analytical laboratories. Now automation is enabling biotechnology and pharmaceutical discovery research to progress more quickly and efficiently, encouraging researchers to develop discovery processes that go well beyond the human capability to manipulate, track, and analyze. Applying automation in the research environment presents numerous unique challenges. User-friendly, robust, and flexible automation must be developed and applied in an environment where project speed is critical and research directions change rapidly. An automation strategy for an organization must bridge such technologies as robotics, automatic identification and tracking, interfacing, data processing, and networking—while interweaving with biology and chemistry. Such an organization has been created at Amgen to span the boundary between automation/information systems development and biology and chemistry research. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.