Resources

Explore insightful resources that include videos, whitepapers, eBooks, application notes and more

dragonfly® discovery: Assay development meets uHTS

Ultra-high-throughput screening (uHTS) demands homogeneous assay formats to leverage the density of 1536/3456 well plates to increase the throughput of large compound (> 1 million) library screens against disease targets. Such assay formats require automated reagent dispensing and rigorous assay development. The key liquid handlers in any uHTS system are non-contact reagent dispensers rather than tip-based multichannel pipetting devices that are common in many lower throughput assay systems. Critical requirements for any uHTS reagent dispenser are accuracy, precision, and speed. Additionally, it is important to integrate the uHTS dispenser into assay development as early as possible. For most bulk dispensers, this integration typically occurs late in the process. The dragonfly discovery from SPT Labtech is a non-contact positive displacement dispenser designed to bridge dispensing needs from assay development through high-throughput screening. It provides ready access to 10 different reagents that can be dispensed in variable volumes as well as at high speeds. We evaluate the performance of this dispenser in high-throughput mode and examine its use in assay development for reagent concentration optimization in 1536-well plates and buffer component optimization by DOE.

Poster

The application of Design of Experiment and the dragonfly discovery to miniaturise, automate and accelerate assay optimization

Automation to carry out complex DoE experiments has always been a limiting factor, both in terms of speed and cost. The dragonfly discovery from SPT Labtech, is a rapid and reliable low volume liquid handler that employs true positive displacement technology to enable the dispensing of all aqueous solutions and solvents, from 200nL through to 4mL. The dragonfly discovery's plate-map file format made it simple to convert and import JMP DoE files and subsequently execute these experimental designs in all microplate types, including 1,536 well plates.

Poster

dragonfly discovery to enable and accelerate early stage drug discovery processes

The complexity of experimental design in early stage drug discovery is rapidly increasing with reagent requirements for a growing number of assays becoming progressively more complex and difficult to dispense. In order to address these challenges, we have utilized the dragonfly discovery to enable a broad range of applications within functional genomics, phenotypic and biochemical assay workflows.

Poster

firefly®+ technical note - Illumina DNA PCR free

This technical note provides supporting information for the firefly+ protocols listed below. These protocols are the Illumina DNA PCR free protocols and are available to download from the firefly community. Here, we outline protocol run times, parts required and provide details on the steps performed in each of the firefly+ protocols.

Technical note

firefly®+ technical note - 10 Genomics' GEM-X 5’ Gene Expression Library Construction

This technical note provides supporting information for automating 10X Genomics' GEM-X 5’ Gene Expression Library Construction (CG000770/CG000733 | Rev A) on SPT Labtech firefly+ liquid handler. These protocols are available to download from the firefly community. Here, we outline protocol run times, parts required and provide details on the steps performed in each protocol.

Technical note

firefly® technical note - 10x Genomics' GEM-X 5’ Gene Expression Library Construction

This technical note provides supporting information for automating 10X Genomics' GEM-X 5’ Gene Expression Library Construction (CG000770/CG000733 | Rev A) on SPT Labtech firefly liquid handler. These protocols are available to download from the firefly community. Here, we outline protocol run times, parts required and provide details on the steps performed in each protocol.

Technical note

Lunch & Learn: Rethinking mRNA Workflows: From Manual Processes to Automated Precision

In this Virtual Lunch and Learn, professionals from EMBL (GeneCore), New England Biolabs and SPT Labtech will outline the journey toward automating the NEBNext UltraExpress mRNA library preparation workflow on the SPT Labtech firefly®+ platform. They will guide you through the individual steps involved in transforming the workflow, from initial manual testing on the bench to a fully automated solution.

Webinar

Scaling Down and Powering Up: Driving Efficiency in Medicinal Chemistry Through Miniaturization

This webinar explores how micro-scale synthesis is transforming Medicinal Chemistry workflows. By miniaturizing reactions, laboratories can reduce material usage, optimize compound storage, and introduce more automation-friendly processes that improve efficiency and scalability.

Webinar

SLAS EU 2026 - Crown Bioscience Interview

Peter Van Schaik, a scientist at Crown Bioscience, joined us at our booth at SLAS 2026 to discuss their work with organoid screening and the many bottlenecks they, and many other labs face when working with organoids. High-throughput organoid screening is typically quite labor intensive and costly, however, Peter explained how Crown Bioscience have utilized our firefly all-in-one liquid handling platform to overcome those bottlenecks and achieve things they wouldn’t been able to achieve before and stand out from other labs.

Interview

Automating three-level combinatorial indexing for ultra-high-throughput single-cell sequencing on the SPT Labtech firefly plus

Single-cell combinatorial indexing enables transcriptomic profiling at a massive scale without the requirement for specialised microfluidic hardware (Cusanovich et al., 2015, Cao et al., 2017, Rosenberg et al., 2018). By utilising fixed cells or nuclei as reaction vessels, this approach allows for exponential scaling through iterative rounds of pooling and barcoding. While traditional two-level indexing provides a baseline for discovery, expanding to three-level indexing (here 384 x 384 x 384) increases the potential indexing space to over 56 million combinations, significantly lowering collision rates for high-throughput experiments.

Poster

Development of a 3D high-content imaging based explorative toxicology platform for tumor and healthy colorectal patient-derived organoids.

This study describes the development of an explorative toxicity screening platform using colorectal PDOs obtained from both tumor and matched healthy tissues. The latter is organized into distinct stem cell and differentiated cell compartments with differing proliferative and functional roles, where stem cells maintain homeostasis and self-renewal, and differentiated cells perform specialized functions including drug uptake and barrier maintenance.

Poster

Streamlined Library Preparation with Enzymatic Fragmentation: Automating KAPA EvoPlus Boost and KAPA EvoPlus V2 Kits on firefly+

OverviewRoche KAPA EvoPlus Boost Kits and KAPA EvoPlus V2 Kits are ideally suited for low- and high-throughput Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) library construction workflows. The KAPA EvoPlus Boost kit uses KAPA EvoAmp ReadyMix powered by KAPA HiFi to construct libraries from input DNA amounts of 0.1 ng to 500 ng. The kits are available in an automation-friendly 96-well plated format. Full walkaway KAPA EvoPlus Boost (or KAPA EvoPlus V2) and KAPA EvoPlus Boost PCR-Free protocols have been developed for the SPT Labtech firefly+ using the 96-well plate format kits and the KAPA Unique Dual-Indexed (UDI) Adapter Kit. This poster provides supporting information for the firefly+ protocols listed below. These protocols are based on the Roche document - “Instructions for Use of KAPA DNA Library Prep Evolved Workflows with enzymatic fragmentation. For use with the KAPA EvoPlus V2 and KAPA EvoPlus Boost kits. Featuring KAPA EvoT4 DNA Ligase and KAPA EvoAmp ReadyMix. (October 2025, Version 5.0)” and are available to download from the firefly community.

Poster

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