Comment by the__alchemist
Comment by the__alchemist 17 hours ago
As a bio hobbyist, this is fantastic! I don't do enough volume of PCR to think of it as expensive, but your use case of high-volume/automatic sounds fantastic! (And so many other types of reagents and equipment are very expensive).
Some things that would be cool
- Along your lines: In general, cheap automated setups for PCR and gels
- Cheap/automatic quantifiable gels. E.g. without needing a kV supply capillary, expensive QPCR machines etc.
- Cheaper enzymes in general
- More options for -80 freezers
- Cheaper/more automated DNA quantification. I got a v1 Quibit which gets the job done, but new ones are very expensive, and reagent costs add up.
- Cheaper shaking incubator options. You can get cheap shakers and baters, but not cheap combined ones... which you need for pretty much everything. Placing one in the other can work, but is sub-optimal due to size and power-cord considerations.
- More centrifuges that can do 10kG... this is the minimum for many protocols.
- Ability to buy pure ethanol without outrageous prices or hazardous shipping fees.
I've thought a lot about this! My main goal is to create a cloud lab that doesn't suck - ie, a remote lab that is actually useful for people, and a lot of these are relevant things. Let me run down the ideas I have for each
1. You can purchase gel boxes that do 48 to 96 lanes at once. I'd ideally have it on a robot whose only purpose is to load and run these once or twice a day. All the samples coming through get batched together and run
2. Bioanalyzer seems nice for quantification of like PCRs to make sure you're getting the right size. But if I'll be honest I haven't though that much about it. But qPCRs actually become very cheap, if you can keep the machines full. You can also use something like a nanodrop and it is much much cheaper
3. Pichia pastoris expression ^
4. You can use a plate reader (another thing that goes bulk nicely), but the reagents you can't really get around (but cheaper in bulk from China)
5. If you aggregate, these become really cheap. The complicated bits are getting the proper cytomat parts for shaking, as they are limited on the used market
6. These can't be automated well, so I honestly haven't thought too much about it.
7. Reagents cheaper in bulk China
8. ehhhh, maybe? But not really. But if you think about a scaled centralized system, you can get away with not using oligos for a lot of things