Overview:

• Introduction to laboratory automation and automated liquid handling for the life sciences — no prior coding experience required
• Hands-on training across three platforms: Opentrons Flex, Opentrons OT-2, and Eppendorf epMotion
• A graduated protocol-building toolset: drag-and-drop Protocol Designer, AI-assisted drafting, and lightly hand-edited Python
• Experimental design at scale: plate maps, controls, dead volume and reagent excess, and combinatorial layouts

Lecture Topics:

• Why automate? Reproducibility, throughput, and the platform landscape
• Anatomy of a liquid handler: decks, labware, pipettes, tips, and modules
• Building protocols without syntax: Protocol Designer and OpentronsAI
• Reading and parameterizing Python; spreadsheet-driven protocols
• Designing automated experiments: plate maps, controls at scale, and combinatorial design
• Bead-based and complex workflows: magnetic modules, heater-shakers, and the gripper
• Applications across the ecosystem: NGS prep, ELISA, screening, and quality control
• Integration and futures: workcells, schedulers, and AI-assisted protocol generation

Lab Topics:

• Deck setup, tip handling, and a colored-dye serial dilution — on all three instruments
• Accuracy and precision challenge: quantifying your own pipetting error by plate reader
• Combinatorial media screen in simulated wastewater — automated setup, readout, and analysis
• Sample normalization and cherrypicking from a self-designed plate map
• Automated UBE3A ubiquitination assay — Opentrons Flex and OT-2, head to head
• Capstone: design (undergraduate) or execute (graduate) a self-chosen automated protocol