Case Study:
Synthace and dragonfly discovery

SPT Labtech and Synthace have joined forces to push the boundaries in physical execution of sophisticated Design of Experiment (DoE) campaigns. DoE
investigations are extremely powerful experiments that enable the rapid optimization of many inputs and parameters simultaneously. The ability to quickly
and easily execute and analyse higher granularity, multifactorial characterizations of biological processes is particularly valuable to assay development groups, who are expected to work under time pressure with increasing modalities and more complexity without commensurate increases in resources.

Combining the speed and accuracy of SPT Labtech’s dragonfly^® discovery dispenser with the flexible planning and data aggregation capabilities of Synthace, we were able to characterize a spectrophotometric enzymatic assay using a space-filling DoE, totalling 3,456 runs for two sets of triplicates of 384 runs and the corresponding controls.

Key Findings

• Synthace’s automated data structuring provided a 94% time saving, accelerating the user’s time to insight.

• Synthace also provided a 75% time saving in execution planning.

• dragonfly^® discovery provided a 98% saving in liquid handling time compared with an average pipetting robot. 

• dragonfly^® discovery further provided a 99.9% saving in tip usage compared with an average pipetting robot. 

• We demonstrate the ability to run thousands of runs of assay optimization in a single day, opening up experimental possibilities that were previously intractable.