Center for Life Science Automation, University Rostock, Rostock, Germany.
Adv Biochem Eng Biotechnol. 2022;182:3-22. doi: 10.1007/10_2021_170.
The automation of processes in all areas of the life sciences will continue to increase in the coming years due to an ever increasing number of samples to be processed, an increasing need to protect laboratory personnel from infectious material and increasing cost pressure. Depending on the requirements of the respective application, different concepts for automation systems are available, which have a different degree of automation with regard to data handling, transportation tasks, and the processing of the samples. Robots form a central component of these automation concepts. Classic stationary robots from the industrial sector will increasingly be replaced by new developments in the field of light-weight robots. In addition, mobile robots will also be of particular importance in the automation of life science laboratories in the future, especially for transportation tasks between different manual and (partially) automated stations. With an increasing number of different, highly diverse processes, the need for special devices and system components will also increase. This applies to both, the handling of the labware and the processing of the samples. In contrast to previous automation strategies with a highly parallel approach, future developments will increasingly be characterized by individual sample handling.
由于需要处理的样本数量不断增加，实验室人员对传染性物质的保护需求不断增加，以及成本压力不断增加，未来几年，生命科学各个领域的流程自动化将继续增加。根据各自应用的要求，有不同的自动化系统概念，这些概念在数据处理、运输任务和样本处理方面具有不同程度的自动化。机器人是这些自动化概念的核心组成部分。工业领域的传统固定机器人将越来越多地被轻型机器人领域的新发展所取代。此外，移动机器人在未来生命科学实验室的自动化中也将特别重要，特别是对于不同手动和（部分）自动化站之间的运输任务。随着越来越多不同的、高度多样化的过程，对特殊设备和系统组件的需求也将增加。这既适用于实验室器具的处理，也适用于样本的处理。与以前具有高度并行方法的自动化策略相反，未来的发展将越来越以单个样本处理为特征。
