Fascinating technology - if I interpret it correctly it looks like you're replacing lots of manual pipetting with a surface that can scooch little drops around using electrostatics. And then do a bunch of stuff you can't do with a pipette like controlling temperature, mixing.
Have you found an increase in throughput from the device vs a human with a traditional wet lab? Or is more about saving bio-chemists some serious back pain?
Your assessment is more or less spot on. We are replacing many pipetting steps with electric and magnetic manipulation of samples on a surface.
Traditionally these operations when done manually (or even on other automation) are done inside tubes. When these operations are carried out inside tubes you have many limitations: you end up using a lot of tips, when pipetting manually some workflows require special techniques to pipette handle the samples. These operations are also extremely painful when do them over and over again -- very tedious and very easy to make a mistake.
Yes we have seen increase in throughputs relative to human. Most humans (often) process samples in batches of 8 / 12 samples. To give you a sense of the length of the workflow in a lab it can range from two hours to two days. The Callisto system can process anywhere from 1 - 24 samples for many workflows and is software controlled. It not only eliminates the manual steps: it provides at least 3X the throughput with 15 mins setup time, provides reproducible results and improves quality.
Have you found an increase in throughput from the device vs a human with a traditional wet lab? Or is more about saving bio-chemists some serious back pain?
Are there new experiments we can do now?