Agilent BioCel 1200 saves labor by full automation of high-throughput screening

By Marc Beban, Director, Integrated Systems and Software Marketing, Agilent Automation Solutions

Customer Case Study: Rigel Pharmaceuticals, South San Francisco, California, U.S.A.

“Instead of 16 people, we task only one or two and the rest are redirected towards the science that we need them to accomplish”
-Todd Kinsella

At Rigel Pharmaceuticals, large-scale screens presented a major bottleneck in the search for "druggable" targets. These functional genomics screens required many scientists to work staggered shifts to accomplish all the tasks. Even then, studies could take months. An automated platform based on the Agilent BioCel System changed all that, expanding throughput and freeing people to pursue new scientific discoveries.

Rigel Pharmaceuticals uses functional genomics to discover small-molecule drugs for the treatment of inflammatory/autoimmune and metabolic diseases. Todd Kinsella's group at Rigel discovers new therapeutic targets by making vast libraries of genetic effectors and screening them in cells, using assays based on flow cytometry and other techniques. Recently, Kinsella explained how the Agilent BioCel 1200 System transformed his lab.

Image 1. Kinsella stands by the automated BioCel System that provides higher capacity, throughput, and efficiency for his lab.

Without the BioCel 1200 System: months of manual labor

Before the automated BioCel System, Kinsella's group performed large-scale functional screening quite differently than they do today. His team would enlist as many people as they could from different groups, then determine who would work which shifts to accomplish all the manual tasks. Screening could take months, and the lab's biggest challenge was getting the work done with limited time and people.  

Kinsella elaborated, "So for the discovery process, we had the molecular biological tools, we had the concepts, but what we needed was a system to accomplish the work for us. This is where the Agilent BioCel comes in. Instead of 16 people, we task only one or two and the rest are redirected towards the science that we need them to accomplish."

After the BioCel System: minimal labor and very high throughput

With the introduction of the automated BioCel System, the lab has a complete solution for large-scale functional genomics screening from experiment start to finish. The platform covers DNA preparation, transfection, viral production, and analysis of the effects of the DNA on cells. Before the BioCel System, DNA preparation alone required eight to twelve people with multichannel pipettors. With the BioCel System, liquid handlers and a robotic arm do the preparation with a single operator.

The BioCel System enables the lab to multiplex assays from a single sample - something the team could not physically handle before. Now, when a sample comes out of the incubator, the automated system can partition and analyze the plates several different ways (for example, flow cytometry, a luminescent assay, and RNA analysis). The cells are placed back into the incubator and are accessed later if any of the assays come back positive. Kinsella emphasized, "That kind of multiplexing in the past may have been carried out in a linear fashion, but this platform allows us to do it all simultaneously, to do it efficiently, and to do it fast."

Plug-and-play system adds flexibility

The automated BioCel System is modular and can integrate large devices and instruments on docking carts. Kinsella's team often takes advantage of this flexibility, undocking a plate reader when no longer needed, and docking either one or two flow cytometers, depending on throughput needs. When not needed for the BioCel System, these devices are used in other parts of the lab, saving the cost of additional instruments.

Image 2. The robotic arm on the BioCel 1200 System reaches outside the system frame to interact with docked devices.

The entire set of experiments - on a single system

Functional genomics screens require many steps, and the automated BioCel System at Rigel does everything from the preparation phase to the analysis phase with minimum hands-on time and very high throughput. Kinsella concluded, "With this system, we expect to find more druggable targets in a shorter time, and we expect the Agilent BioCel to deliver those targets to us faster and with a much greater efficiency than the old way."

To learn more about the Agilent BioCel System, see the Agilent product page, or talk with your Agilent representative.