The Society for Laboratory Automation and Screening (SLAS) international conference (SLAS2025) continued on Tuesday 28 January.

Monday Night Party

The annual Hamilton Monday Night Party was held aboard the USS Midway and was very well-attended.

Award winners

On Monday evening the Award Spotlight: SLAS2025 Student Poster Award Winners were announced.

Congratulations to:

• Lan Mi, University of Massachusetts – Amherst

Genetically Encoded Fluorogenic RNA-based Bioluminescence Resonance Energy Transfer (BRET) Sensors for Cellular Imaging and Target Detection

• Toan Phan, Chulalongkorn University

Decellularized Matrix-hyaluronan-alginate Hybrid Hydrogels to Enable Oral Mucosa-on-a-chip Microfluidics

• Charissa Witters, University of Antwerp

Forecasting Clear Vision: How QSAR Modeling Catalyzes Small Molecule Development in the Field of Corneal Endothelial Regeneration

Ignite Theatre

Tuesday in the DDW Concept to Cure Ignite Theatre included two presentations. The first, from Graham Dempsey, Co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Quiver Biosciences, who shared his expertise on: “The brain genomic position system: Navigating to precision CNS therapies through perturbation maps of neuronal function”. Dr Dempsey directs the scientific, medical, engineering and AI/ML activities at Quiver, leading the rapid evolution of the company’s foundational technology platforms as well as its small molecule and antisense oligonucleotide therapeutic programmes.

While yesterday the theatre saw Nicola Richmond of Recursion discuss automating drug discovery with AI, today Patrick Collins discussed improving drug discovery with AI, automation and robotics. Dr Collins completed a PhD in Australia before working at the UK’s national synchrotron science facility, Diamond Light Source. There, he contributed to the development of a world-first platform for fragment screening by X-ray crystallography. In 2019, he joined Exscientia, now Recursion, where he works in lab automation in the drug discovery field.

New products

Trilobio

Trilobio introduced the first version of its robotics, lab equipment and software platform, alongside pilot customer data, demonstrating the platform’s abilities in advancing research workflows.

Trilobio was founded with the aim of improving genetic engineering, synthetic biology and life science research processes by building robotic lab automation modules coupled with an application store to package and distribute lab protocols as code. The company is deploying fully automated labs that aim to address data quality and reproducibility challenges and overcome research inefficiencies.

Azenta

Azenta announced that it has been selected as the technology provider by UK Biocentre as they expand their large-scale sample storage in support of the preservation of internationally significant sample collections.

This new system is in addition to the seven Azenta BioArc Flex automated sample store systems already in place at the facility. UK Biocentre will utilise the new BioArc Ultra to deliver on critical research projects including the United Kingdom’s largest health research programme – Our Future Health. 

Ncardia

Ncardia announced the launch of Ncyte Microglia, a tool designed to advance research in neurodegenerative diseases and central nervous system (CNS) disorders.

Ncyte Microglia are hiPSC-derived models that closely mimic primary human microglia, exhibiting key functional characteristics such as phagocytosis, cytokine signalling response, and the expression of microglial markers including IBA1, TREM2, and TMEM119. These features make Ncyte Microglia highly suitable for studying microglial behaviour in disease-relevant contexts, assessing immune responses, and enabling high-throughput drug screening applications.

Sartorius

Sartorius unveiled their new iQue 5 High-Throughput Screening (HTS) Cytometer with the slogan “Twice the channels and twice the potential”. The new system offers up to 27-channel capacity, accelerated speed and flexible workflow support. It also features new clog detection, less manual intervention and an improved fluidics system.

Meet the Exhibitor: Sphere Fluidics

The sponsored DDW Meet the Exhibitor Vodcast is a series of interviews from key industry events. Here, Megan Thomas, Multimedia Editor at DDW, interviews Jay Gerlach, VP of Marketing at Sphere Fluidics, in the lead up to SLAS2025 in San Diego.

At SLAS2025, you will have the opportunity to meet the team from Sphere Fluidics to discuss the company, its products, and key opportunities in drug discovery with which the company can assist.