Daniel Sipes
Director of Advanced Automation Technologies
At GNF, we believe that technology is a fundamental part of discovery and that, when technology is wielded properly, it can impact drug development and basic research in new and powerful ways. Our Advanced Automation Technologies (AAT) Group was formed as an extension of this philosophy. By developing, building, and applying high throughput technologies, ATT ensures that GNF scientists have state-of-the-art equipment and tools available to facilitate their research.
When faced with a technological challenge, our AAT group first performs a comprehensive survey of commercially available solutions. If none are adequate, we bring together a multidisciplinary team to design a strategy. The team often includes engineers, chemists, biologists, computational scientists, safety, and facilities personnel, and outside vendors such as reagent providers.
The close physical proximity of these diverse resources at GNF provides several unique advantages, including the ability to apply engineering resources to a problem early in the process—even at the idea stage. Furthermore, rapid prototyping can quickly provide proof-of-concept, which allows the simultaneous evaluation of several technological paths early in a project. Once the best technological solution is determined, scientists and engineers work closely together to build the working platform. By having a diverse team in-house, all the information and skills associated with the platform remain within GNF as institutional knowledge.
To date, the AAT group has successfully pioneered several landmark technologies including a first-in-class, fully-robotic high throughput 1536-well cell-based HTS system and a novel automated profiling system for cellular assays. More information regarding the capabilities, performance, and productivity of these systems can be found here. This and other customized robotic screening systems are commercially available through GNF Systems.
