Resources

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dragonfly

Precision designed for cell-based workflows - Ebook

View our full ebook on precision designed for cell-based workflows using dragonfly discovery.

Guide

Precision designed for cell-based workflows - Poster

View our one page on precision designed for cell-based workflows using dragonfly discovery.

Poster

dragonfly® discovery Precision Dispensing - Ebook

View our full ebook on precision dispensing for every stage of discovery using one platform with multiple workflows and endless possibilities, dragonfly discovery.

Guide

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

Enabling VPS4B Drug Discovery Through a Robust and Miniaturized ATPase Screening Platform

The dragonfly discovery was successfully validated with the Transcreener assay in both 384- and 1536-well formats, demonstrating highly reproducible performance across plate densities.

Poster

A design of Experiments Toolbox for Assay Development and Optimization

In this poster we demonstrate that the dragonfly® discovery's accurate, repeatable and rapid low volume transfers, paired with synthace, enabled it to develop a robust RecBCD assay, which offers a versatile toolbox for novel assay optimization

Poster

Generating Bespoke Datasets for Foundation Models in AI Drug Discovery

The application of AI in drug discovery relies on high-quality, reproducible training datasets. Traditional screening campaigns focus on identifying potent hits, but ML-driven drug discovery requires comprehensive potency evaluation across entire compound libraries. Here, we introduce a partial concentration-response curve (pCRC) approach that estimates potency using just two data points per compound. We onboarded a panel of 65 diverse kinases and screened 7000 compounds against the panel at ATP concentrations near Kₘ to minimize modality bias, achieving a mean robust Z’ of 0.74 across all targets. A direct comparison of 100 fragments tested in both 2-point pCRC and conventional 11-point CRC formats demonstrated excellent correlation, confirming that our pCRC methodology produces high-quality data suitable for ML model training. The integration of our automation platform, including SPT Labtech’s dragonfly® discovery, with automated data pipelines enabled the generation of 221,000 high-quality ML-ready data points per day, accelerating the development of foundation model training for drug discovery.

Webinar

dragonfly discovery - How to dispense Matrigel and PeptiMatrix hydrogels

This video gives a tutorial on how to dispense Matrigel and PeptiMatric hydrogels using the Dragonfly discovery for use cases such as for 3D Cell culture. The dragonfly® discovery is a low volume, positive displacement, non-contact dispenser. The instrument is available in three configurations that differ by the number of dispense heads (3, 6, 10) or channels. Channels can be combined for fast bulk reagent dispensing (as demonstrated in this video), or, used independently to dispense any volume of any liquid class into any well at any time.

Tutorial

Advancing 3D Cell Culture: Automated positive displacement dispensing of MCF7 and HepG2 cells, mixed with PeptiMatrix™ Hydrogel

In vitro cell cultures are essential for modelling disease, but traditional 2D cell culture systems fall short in replicating the complex microenvironments of native tissues. This limitation hinders the translation of in vitro findings to in vivo contexts and contributes to the high attrition rates seen in drug discovery pipelines.

Application note

Automating antibiotic discovery in academia: A collaborative screening effort to identify novel TB therapeutics

In this webinar, hear how a collaboration between SPT Labtech, Automata, GSK, and researchers at the Francis Crick Institute, employed cutting-edge automation tools, including the dragonfly® discovery liquid handling system by SPT Labtech and Automata’s LINQ platform, to conduct a high-throughput enzymatic screen targeting a vulnerable pathway in Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb).

Webinar

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