A high throughput liquid handling platform for molecular computation and data storage
Abstract
We propose to purchase an Echo 650 acoustic liquid handler. The Echo is designed to precisely transfer and mix nanoliter volumes at high throughput. The Echo 650 will be used to support ongoing and future Department of Defense (DoD)-supported research in synthetic biology and DNA nanotechnology. In particular, it will enable research on gene circuit engineering, computational design of functional DNA and protein sequences, mRNA therapeutics, molecularcomputing, DNA data storage and Bio-Cyber Security. The Echo 650 will be integrated into an existing and innovative cost center at the University of Washington (UW), the UW BIOFAB, which is designed to manage complex molecular biology workflows. Integration with the UW BIOFAB ensures easy access to the Echo 650 to the broader research community at the UW.The Echo will be also used for training undergraduate and graduate students through several courses including the Laboratory Methods in Synthetic Biology class and the Molecular Information Systems class. The synthetic biology laboratory class is part of an interdepartmental three-course series in synthetic biology that has been offered annually for over ten years. The classhas a strong focus on laboratory automation and aims to provide students the opportunity to familiarize themselves with cutting edge equipment. At the graduate level, the Molecular Information Systems class focuses on molecular programming and information systems. This course includes projects that build systems integrating molecular, electronic and computational components. The Echo system would uniquely enable projects that push the technological limitsof molecular scalability and, perhaps most importantly, reproducibility through automation. Project summary is publicly releasable.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Apr 06, 2021
- Source ID
- N000142112329
Entities
People
- Georg Seelig
Organizations
- Office of Naval Research
- United States Navy
- University of Washington