Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering, ETH Zurich, Basel, Switzerland.
University of Basel, Hebelstrasse 20, 4031, Basel, Switzerland.
Nat Commun. 2022 May 30;13(1):2999. doi: 10.1038/s41467-022-30643-7.
Liquid handling robots have the potential to automate many procedures in life sciences. However, they are not in widespread use in academic settings, where funding, space and maintenance specialists are usually limiting. In addition, current robots require lengthy programming by specialists and are incompatible with most academic laboratories with constantly changing small-scale projects. Here, we present the Pipetting Helper Imaging Lid (PHIL), an inexpensive, small, open-source personal liquid handling robot. It is designed for inexperienced users, with self-production from cheap commercial and 3D-printable components and custom control software. PHIL successfully automates pipetting (incl. aspiration) for e.g. tissue immunostainings and stimulations of live stem and progenitor cells during time-lapse microscopy using 3D printed peristaltic pumps. PHIL is cheap enough to put a personal pipetting robot within the reach of most labs and enables users without programming skills to easily automate a large range of experiments.
液体处理机器人有可能使生命科学领域的许多程序自动化。然而，它们在学术环境中并未得到广泛应用，因为资金、空间和维护专家通常是有限的。此外，当前的机器人需要由专家进行冗长的编程，并且与大多数学术实验室不兼容，因为这些实验室的小规模项目经常发生变化。在这里，我们介绍了 Pipetting Helper Imaging Lid（PHIL），这是一种廉价、小巧、开源的个人液体处理机器人。它专为没有经验的用户设计，使用廉价的商业和可 3D 打印组件以及定制的控制软件进行自我生产。PHIL 成功地自动化了例如组织免疫染色和在延时显微镜下对活干细胞和祖细胞进行刺激的移液操作，使用 3D 打印蠕动泵。PHIL 足够便宜，可以让大多数实验室都能够使用个人移液机器人，并使没有编程技能的用户能够轻松地自动化广泛的实验。
