Automation Greatly Increases Speed of Protein Complex Production

ACEMBL is the first fully automatable pipeline for the production of multi-protein complexes, developed by researchers at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) on the Freedom EVO® platform from Tecan. This system makes it possible to perform experiments that were previously unthinkable using manual methods and has great potential for revealing currently unknown molecular mechanisms of health and disease that could be vital in drug discovery.

Dr Imre Berger, Group Leader, explained: “Automation is the essential solution for protein complex expression and production, when many-fold variation in the individual proteins is required for experimental success.
With a robot, many experiments can be performed simultaneously and in parallel, with a precision that is unattainable manually. We use a Freedom EVO 200 platform with three identical liquid handling modules and,
additionally, a sterile, covered compartment for growing cell cultures.”

“The two main advantages of automation are diversification and throughput. Research and optimisation of the procedures are ongoing; we aim to produce a routine and robust high throughput application with several
automated platforms running in parallel, repeating the ACEMBL procedure many thousands of times with up to 95% efficiency.” Imre concluded: “We are continuously in contact with Tecan, which is a collaboration of mutual
benefit. We have an excellent working relationship and often have discussions for method development.”