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Texas Youngsters’s Hospital makes use of a dual-armed YuMi to switch fruit flies to new vials with contemporary meals. | Supply: ABB Robotics
Drosophila melanogaster, higher often called the fruit fly, may look like a run-of-the-mill pest. These bugs, nevertheless, are essential for ongoing analysis into varied neurological illnesses at Texas Youngsters’s Hospital.
Fruit flies are so necessary for this analysis as a result of they share 75% of the genes that trigger illnesses in people, breed shortly, and scientists can simply change their DNA code, in response to UC Davis. Dealing with these fruit flies within the lab, nevertheless, could be a tough endeavor.
ABB Robotics and the Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Analysis Institute (Duncan NRI) at Texas Youngsters’s Hospital have created an automatic fruit fly switch workstation. The system options ABB’s dual-arm YuMi collaborative robotic to assist the examine of illnesses together with Alzheimer’s, Huntington’s, and Parkinson’s.
The firm mentioned that is the primary automated system that doesn’t require the flies to be immobilized with anesthetics akin to carbon dioxide earlier than switch. The anesthesia stage is a tedious step in earlier programs, which may hurt the conduct of the flies and the accuracy of examine outcomes.
“We’ve got seen important strides in lab automation through the years, but some essential duties are nonetheless carried out manually, which may impression outcomes,” acknowledged Jose-Manuel Collados, supervisor of the ABB Service Robotics Product Line. “Our YuMi cobot’s arms work independently however in a coordinated means, making it attainable to automate the advanced activity of transferring reside flies between vials.”
Transferring fruit flies between vials is a difficult activity
As a part of routine upkeep, Texas Youngsters’s Hospital researchers feed fruit flies by transferring them into vials containing meals each 30 days. A typical lab maintains round 20,000 vials, that means researchers spend 20% of a workday “flipping flies” by inserting a vial containing the fly inventory over a vial with contemporary meals, after which tapping it to drop the flies.
All earlier makes an attempt to automate the method up to now concerned exposing the flies exterior the vials throughout switch, therefore requiring sedation, ABB mentioned. The brand new system may also enhance the accuracy of outcomes and velocity up the switch course of, famous ABB Robotics.
Engineers from ABB collaborated with researchers at Duncan NRI to design and construct a fly switch workstation, which incorporates the YuMi cobot, a desk stacked with vials for switch, a barcode and labeling unit, and a trash chute.
ABB’s YuMi cobot performs the identical actions as human researchers to faucet and switch the flies between vials. This permits scientists to concentrate on mission-critical duties akin to the invention of latest pathways and testing the efficacy of latest medication in treating neurological problems.
YuMi permits meticulous monitoring at Texas Youngsters’s Hospital
The YuMi handles the complete technique of flipping fruit flies, which incorporates performing 10 pre-programmed steps in fast succession. Identical to people, the robotic picks up a vial containing reside flies, opens the protecting cellulose acetate plug, locations the vial over one with contemporary meals, and faucets the vial to switch the flies.
It then caps, labels, and scans the vial and at last stacks it in cardboard racks. The robotic then discards the vials with previous meals to keep away from any cross-contamination.
One standout characteristic of the system, in response to ABB, is its functionality to learn barcodes and print labels. Researchers use these labels to establish pressure and genotype data through the switch. This characteristic ensures meticulous monitoring and administration of the Drosophila strains.
The robotic’s superior sensing applied sciences allow exact placement of vials inside normal cardboard racks, granting researchers the choice of constant to make use of present vial racks, lowering operational prices for Texas Youngsters’s Hospital.
ABB mentioned it engineered this technique to be cooperative and protected for human interplay. Its motion-sensing arms are outfitted to detect close by people or objects, halting motion immediately to stop accidents, thereby permitting for a protected collaborative workspace.
ABB’s YuMi cobot tipping a vial with fruit flies the wrong way up above one other vial to supply them with contemporary meals. | Supply: ABB Robotics
