In this episode, podcast host David Pechter invites SLAS Technology featured author Dr. Hossam Ibrahim (University College Dublin) to discuss his research on the dissemination of tumor cells to understand the mechanisms behind cancer metastasis. Tune in to hear how the research team developed a migration assay combining 3D models and a physiologically relevant extracellular matrix. Hear about the unique challenges faced by researchers while orchestrating the application of 3D technologies with high throughput screening methods.For more, read Dr. Ibrahim's paper "A Biomimetic High Throughput Model of Cancer Cell Spheroid Dissemination onto Aligned Fibrillar Collagen". Dr. Ibrahim is a researcher at University College Dublin (UCD) in the School of Physics and also at the Nanoscale Function Group located in the Conway Institute of Biomolecular and Biomedical Research. For more information about the journal, visit SLAS Technology or contact the SLAS publishing office at publishing@slas.org.

Behind the Special Issue: Join podcast host David Pechter as he invites Joseph de Rutte (Partillion Bioscience) to discuss the paper: “Sorting single-cell microcarriers using commercial flow cytometers”. This research was featured in the recent SLAS Technology special issue, Single Cell Analysis Technologies. Listen in as they discuss the unique formation of microscopic, bowl-shaped containers they call nanovials, and the applications of these cell carriers in flow cytometry for functional single-cell assays. Dr. Joe de Rutte received his B.S. and M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2014 and 2016 and received a Ph.D. in Bioengineering from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2020. He co-founded Partillion Bioscience in 2020 based on his Ph.D. research and currently leads the company as President. Dr. de Rutte was awarded the 2020 Society of Laboratory Automation and Screening Innovation Award in recognition of the impact of his “Lab on a Particle” work.For more on applications of single cell analysis technologies, read the full open access special issue: Single Cell Analysis TechnologiesVisit https://www.slas.org/publications/slas-technology/ for more information about SLAS and its journals.

Join SLAS Podcast Host Dave Pechter as he welcomes R. Graham Cooks, Ph.D. (Purdue University) and Nicolás M. Morato (Purdue University) to discuss their research, featured in the latest Issue of SLAS Technology. They are joined by Nathan P. Coussens, Ph.D. (Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research), guest editor of this special issue.  Together, they discuss the article “Automated High-Throughput System Combining Small-Scale Synthesis with Bioassays and Reaction Screening”. This work explores the application of desorption electrospray ionization (DESI) for high-throughput synthetic chemistry, chemical reaction screening, and label-free biological assays.This article is part of the December Special Issue: “Assay Guidance Manual for Drug Discovery: Technologies that Matter”, part of a joint collaboration between the Assay Guidance Manual and SLAS. The goal of these combined publications is to tackle the crisis of reproducibility in biomedical science by utilizing rigorous data analysis, strong reporting standards and robust assays. The Assay Guidance Manual is a free and publicly available eBook of best practices for the design, development, and implementation of robust assays in preclinical research. For more information about the journal, visit the SLAS Technology website or contact the SLAS publishing office at publishing@slas.org

Join Jill Hronek, SLAS Director of Marketing and Communications, and Ally Jump, SLAS Publishing Manager, as they speak with SLAS Discovery and SLAS Technology’s respective Editors-in-Chief, Robert M. Campbell, Ph.D., (Twentyeight-Seven Therapeutics, Boston, MA USA) and Edward Kai-Hua Chow, Ph.D., (National University of Singapore, Singapore) about SLAS’s new Open Access model for the Society’s two peer-reviewed journals.  Beginning January 1, 2022 both SLAS Discovery and SLAS Technology will be available Open Access and through a new publisher, Elsevier. Tune in to have your questions answered about all things publishing and open access and hear what other exciting things the SLAS publishing team has in store for the new year.Check out our SLAS Open Access FAQs and Elsevier Open Access Agreements to see if your institution covers publishing costs!

Recent innovations and accelerating market availability have led to tremendous growth in demand for affordable 3D bioprinter hardware. Podcast host David Pechter invites SLAS Technology August cover authors Roman Voronov and Anh Tong of the New Jersey Institute of Technology to discuss their review of the market, and their predictions about where it is going.This month's SLAS Technology cover article provides essential insights to researchers entering a market flooded with different types of low-cost bioprinter models. Click here to read the full review!

Podcast Editor David Pechter hosts Jim Collins of the MIT Department of Biological Engineering to discuss his talk on the harnessing of deep learning to fight pathogens.  The future of medicines using synthetic biology is a rapidly expanding field, with applications including engineered diagnostics, gene and cell therapies, and the deployment of mRNA vaccines to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. The application of deep learning is accelerating this research, facilitating rapid candidate identification for novel therapies.

Volume 26 Issue 1, February 2021Dave Pechter discusses the February SLAS Technology Special Collection AI in Process Automation with Guest Editor Cenk Undey (Amgen), which includes the following papers:Artificial Intelligence Effecting a Paradigm Shift in Drug Development by Masturah Bte Mohd Abdul RashidArtificial Intelligence (AI) to the Rescue: Deploying Machine Learning to Bridge the Biorelevance Gap in Antioxidant Assays by Sunday Olakunle Idowu and Amos Akintayo FatokunDeep Learning and Computer Vision Strategies for Automated Gene Editing with a Single-Cell Electroporation Platform by Cesar Patino, Prithvijit Mukherjee, Vincent Lemaitre, et al.

Volume 25 Issue 6, December 2020Dave Pechter discusses the December SLAS Technology Special Collection Advances in Technology to Address COVID-19 with Associate Editor Pak Kin Wong (The Pennsylvania State University), which includes Professor Wong's review Advances in Viral Diagnostic Technologies for Combating COVID-19 and Future Pandemics.

Volume 25 Issue 5, October 2020Dave Pechter discusses with Varun Bhaskar Kothamachu, Ph.D. (Head of Product, Digi.Bio) & Sabrina Zaini (Head of Operations, Digi.Bio) their featured research article, "Role of Digital Microfluidics in Enabling Access to Laboratory Automation and Making Biology Programmable."

SLAS Technology 25.4 August 2020

Volume 25 Issue 3, June 2020Dave Pechter discusses with Georges Muller & Yann Barrandon their two featured research articles, "Traceable Impedance-Based Dispensing and Cloning of Living Single Cells" and "Impedance-Based Single-Cell Pipetting."Traceable Impedance-Based Dispensing and Cloning of Living Single Cells: Single-cell cloning is essential in stem cell biology, cancer research, and biotechnology. Regulatory agencies now require an indisputable proof of clonality that current technologies do not readily provide. Here, we report a one-step cloning method using an engineered pipet combined with an impedance-based sensing tip. This technology permits the efficient and traceable isolation of living cells, stem cells, and cancer stem cells that can be individually expanded in culture and transplanted.Impedance-Based Single-Cell Pipetting: Many biological methods are based on single-cell isolation. In single-cell line development, the gold standard involves the dilution of cells by means of a pipet. This process is time-consuming as it is repeated over several weeks to ensure clonality. Here, we report the modeling, designing, and testing of a disposable pipet tip integrating a cell sensor based on the Coulter principle. We investigate, test, and discuss the effects of design parameters on the sensor performances with an analytical model. We also describe a system that enables the dispensing of single cells using an instrumented pipet coupled with the sensing tip. Most importantly, this system allows the recording of an impedance trace to be used as proof of single-cell isolation. We assess the performances of the system with beads and cells. Finally, we show that the electrical detection has no effect on cell viability.

Volume 25 Issue 2, April 2020Dave Pechter discusses with Agata Blasiak & Theodore Kee regarding their article, "CURATE.AI: Optimizing Personalized Medicine with Artificial Intelligence." The clinical team attending to a patient upon a diagnosis is faced with two main questions: what treatment, and at what dose? Clinical trials’ results provide the basis for guidance and support for official protocols that clinicians use to base their decisions upon. However, individuals rarely demonstrate the reported response from relevant clinical trials, often the average from a group representing a population or subpopulation. The decision complexity increases with combination treatments where drugs administered together can interact with each other, which is often the case. Additionally, the individual’s response to the treatment varies over time with the changes in his or her condition, whether via the indication or physiology. In practice, the drug and the dose selection depend greatly on the medical protocol of the healthcare provider and the medical team’s experience. As such, the results are inherently varied and often suboptimal. Big data approaches have emerged as an excellent decision-making support tool, but their application is limited by multiple challenges, the main one being the availability of sufficiently big datasets with good quality, representative information. An alternative approach—phenotypic personalized medicine (PPM)—finds an appropriate drug combination (quadratic phenotypic optimization platform [QPOP]) and an appropriate dosing strategy over time (CURATE.AI) based on small data collected exclusively from the treated individual. PPM-based approaches have demonstrated superior results over the current standard of care. The side effects are limited while the desired output is maximized, which directly translates into improving the length and quality of individuals’ lives.

Volume 25 Issue 1, February 2020Dave Pechter discusses with Hideaki Tsutsui & Peter Lillehoj regarding February's Special Issue. Over the last decade, flexible analytical devices have received considerable attention in both academia and industry. Compared to conventional analytical devices which are generally made from rigid materials, such as silicon, glass, and plastics, flexible devices offer several unique advantages, such as simplified fabrication, lower costs, enhanced portability and disposability, and compliance to curved or deforming surfaces. For these reasons, flexible analytical devices are well suited for many diagnostic applications, including wearable and in vivo sensing, and point-of-care testing for disease detection and health monitoring. This special issue showcases a comprehensive review and exciting original research on topics ranging from wearable sensors for human motion monitoring and disease diagnosis, flexible electrochemical sensor arrays for human cell culture monitoring, paper-based sensors and immunoassays for diagnostic testing, a paper-based biological solar cell for power generation and storage, and a 3D printing strategy for rapid prototyping of flexible microfluidic devices.

Volume 24 Issue 6, December 2019Dave Pechter discusses with Chao Li the article, "Automated System for Small-Population Single-Particle Processing Enabled by Exclusive Liquid Repellency." Lossless processing and culture of rare cells (e.g., circulating tumor cells, drug-persistent microorganisms) at single-cell level is of great significance in understanding the heterogeneity of carcinogenesis or human pathogenesis caused by microbial infection. Current single-cell isolation techniques like fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS) require relatively large sample volume and cell number to work with, and inflict sample loss and reduced cell viability from the processing. While microfluidic and single-cell printing techniques allow the handling of minute amounts of cellular samples, they either come with limited physical access to the sample of interest due to the closed-channel design (e.g., droplet microfluidics) or sample loss during aspiration, transfer, and sample retrieval from culture.Recently, we reported an extreme wettability phenomenon, named exclusive liquid repellency or ELR. ELR is observed in solid-liquid-liquid three phase systems, where a solid surface shows complete repellency to a liquid (with Young’s contact angle, CA = 180o) when exposed to a second immiscible liquid. This phenomenon is observed when a particular thermodynamic boundary condition is satisfied (i.e., γS/Lcp + γLdp/Lcp ≤ γS/Ldp, where γ - interfacial tension, S - solid, Lcp - liquid of continuous phase, and Ldp - liquid of dispersed phase). Neither surfactant nor flow condition is required, e.g., compared with droplet microfluidics. ELR enables additional fluidic control, robust on-chip cell culture, and improved processing of rare cell samples in open aqueous fluid under oil. ELR is distinct from other liquid repellent systems with CA In this work, we developed an automated platform using ELR microdrops for lossless single-particle (or single-cell) isolation, identification, and retrieval. It features the combined use of a robotic liquid handler, an automated microscopic imaging system, and real-time image-processing software for single-particle identification. The automated ELR technique enables rapid, hands-free, and robust isolation of microdrop-encapsulated rare cellular samples, and further on-chip cell culture or down-stream analysis (e.g., RNA extraction and RT-qPCR).

SLAS Technology 24.5 October 2019Professors at Johns Hopkins University, Claire Hur and Deok-Ho Kim, discuss their special issue, "Engineering Innovations for Fundamental Biology and Translational Medicine."In this special issue of SLAS Technology, the editors showcase reviews and original research reports addressing the accuracy in diagnostic and prognostic tests performed on the patient-derived specimen, an emerging technology demand for personalized medicine.Soojung Claire Hur, Ph.D., is Clare Boothe Luce Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Johns Hopkins Whiting School of Engineering, and an expert in microfluidics. Deok-Ho Kim, Ph.D., is faculty in the Department of Biomedical Engineering and Department of Medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.Topics include the role of microfluidic technology in patient-specific information collection and endeavors to integrate innovative technologies with existing clinical workflows through automation and miniaturization for expedited translation.

Volume 24 Issue 4, August 2019UCLA Professor, Dino Di Carlo, discusses his review paper, "Technologies for the Directed Evolution of Cell Therapies." The next generation of therapies is moving beyond the use of small molecules and proteins to using whole cells. Compared with the interactions of small-molecule drugs with biomolecules, which can largely be understood through chemistry, cell therapies act in a chemical and physical world and can actively adapt to that world, amplifying complexity but also the potential for truly breakthrough impact. Although there has been success in introducing targeting proteins into cells to achieve a therapeutic effect, for example, chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells, our ability to engineer cells is generally limited to introducing proteins, but not modulating large-scale traits or structures of cellular “machines,” which play critical roles in disease. Example traits include the ability to secrete compounds, deform through tissue, adhere to surrounding cells, apply force to phagocytose targets, or move through extracellular matrix. There is an opportunity to increase the efficacy of cell therapies through the use of quantitative automation tools, to analyze, sort, and select rare cells with beneficial traits. Combined with methods of genetic or epigenetic mutagenesis to create diversity, such approaches can enable the directed cellular evolution of new therapeutically optimal populations of cells and uncover genetic underpinnings of these optimal traits.

SLAS Technology 24.1 February 2019Guest Editor Richard M. Eglen of Corning Life Sciences (Tewksbury, MA, USA) talks about a new collection of reviews and original research reports that illustrate how the combination of human iPS cells and 3D cell culture technology provide powerful new approaches to the development of novel and more effective therapies. Free access to the published collection is sponsored by Corning Life Sciences.

SLAS Technology 23.6 December 2018University of Kansas researchers Yangjie Wei and Nicholas Larson talk about how they used a steady-state/lifetime fluorescence-based, high-throughput platform to develop a general workflow for direct formulation optimization under analytically challenging but commercially relevant conditions.

SLAS Technology 23.5 October 2018Guest Editor James M. Gill, II, Ph.D., of BFL Consulting (Madison, CT) talks about how the October 2018 issue of SLAS Technology showcases life sciences researchers who are pioneering the use of powerful yet accessible and low-cost IoT technologies in their laboratories. Ten articles illustrate how IoT is being used to optimize factors such as throughput, cost, uptime and result quality.

SLAS Technology 23.4 August 2018UCLA’s Coleman Murray, Ph.D., talks about his contribution to the August 2018 special issue of SLAS Technology on Enabling Technology in Cell-Based Therapies by guest editor Chris Puleo and his associates at General Electric Global Research. Murray’s article illustrates an important example of how new technologies are changing automation and processing in cell therapy manufacturing.