Commissioning of an Opentrons robot in the Regional Hospital of Málaga (2020)
Opentrons Labworks, Inc. (or Opentrons) is a biotechnology company that manufactures
liquid handling robots that use
open-source software, which at one point used open-source hardware but no longer does.[citation needed] Their robots can be used by scientists to manipulate small volumes of liquids for the purpose of undertaking
biochemical or chemical reactions. Currently, they offer the OT-2 and Flex robots. These robots are used primarily by researchers and scientists interested in
DIY biology, but they are increasingly being used by other biologists.[1]
Products
OT-1 – The OpenTrons OT-1 was the result of a
crowdfunding campaign on the
Kickstarter platform and was released in 2015 for $2,000.[2][3] This robot employed adapters to actuate handheld
micropipettes. The release of the OT-1 marked the first commercial open source liquid handling robot in the life science industry. It was also the last in the series to adhere to
open hardware standards,[4][5] however, editable
CAD files were not released. It is no longer commercially available,[6] though at least one replication was attempted.[7]
OT-2 – The OpenTrons OT-2 was released in 2018 and has seen utilization as one of the tools that researchers are leveraging in the fight against
COVID-19.[8][9] The OT-2 and later products, including its electronic micropipettes and hardware modules, are
closed source (proprietary) hardware. Only coarse CAD files for the enclosure have been released,[10] with no details on the internals, such that it no longer complies with current open hardware standards.[4][5][original research?] The software remains open source.
Flex – Successor to the OT-2, the Flex was released in 2023, "measures two feet by two feet by two feet", and is purchased with a one-time cost rather than a
robot as a service (RaaS) subscription.[11] Its open-source and accessible
API allows it to interact with potential
AI tools.[12]
A person using
Opentrons liquid handling robot inside one of the
OpenCell laboratories.
In 2014, the startup officially launched with financial backing from
HAXLR8TR, a hardware accelerator in
Shenzhen, China. In late 2014, they launch a
Kickstarter campaign.[2][13] They show their machine inserting DNA inside E. coli after their campaign successfully gets funded.[14] Jonathan Brennan-Badal, who was VP of strategy at
ComiXology and a board member of Genspace, joined Opentrons in 2014 and is the current CEO.[15]
In 2016, Opentrons was part of
Y Combinator's Winter cohort of startups.[16]
Impact
Opentrons robots have had a variety of uses in the scientific and DIY community. Scientists at
UCSD modified an existing OT-1 robot to automate adding in reagents and imaging their
cell signaling experiments.[1] Scientists at
Carnegie Mellon University used the OT-2, Opentrons Python API, and
OpenAI'sGPT-4 to autonomously design, plan, and perform experiments.[17]
During the
COVID-19 pandemic, Opentrons helped set up the Pandemic Response Lab (PRL), a sequencing facility located in
Queens, New York.[18] Opentrons' robots at the PRL helped speed up turnaround time for COVID-19 testing, going from 7 to 14 days to 12 hours, and reducing costs from $2,000 to under $28.[19] Institutions that made use of Opentrons' robots for COVID-19 testing include:
Mayo Clinic,
Harvard,
Stanford,
Caltech,
MIT, and
BioNTech.[13]
Subsidiaries
As a company, Opentrons has a number of subsidiaries.[20]
Opentrons Robotics – business unit for user-friendly lab automation