So first, a little bit about EDITCO. We’re relatively new as of this year. We’re actually a fully independent company. We separated out from a group called SYNTHEGO, which makes synthetic guide RNA. We’re the cell business—we do CRISPR-edited cells.

Our goal is to empower scientists through our CRISPR expertise.

Scientists have experiments that need editing, and we handle primary cells, iPSCs, immortalized cell lines, as well as all kinds of knockouts and knock-ins.

If you want it, there’s probably someone at EDITCO who knows how to make it happen—whether it’s advice or performing the edit for you.

Product Lines

We have a couple of reagent products:

• Gene Knockout Kits – For turning off pesky genes.

• Arrayed gRNA Libraries – If you’ve got a lot of genes to target.

And then we have all sorts of cell lines. Today, we’re focusing just on the guide RNA libraries.

These two product lines are very similar. EDITCO uses a strategy called multi-guide RNA. For a given gene target, we design three different guide RNAs, which enables larger fragment deletions—much more effective than single indels.

We’re typically seeing up to 80% knockout efficiency.

We have designs for:

• The entire human genome (all ~20,000 genes)

• The mouse genome

These are available directly through our website. For the gene knockout kits, we offer:

• Four different yields

• All in the same tube format

• That adds up to 80,000 different product combinations from this one product type

For arrayed libraries, it gets even more complex:

• Available in 96- and 384-well formats

• Five different yields, four labware types

• That’s 94 million+ combinations

We’re continuing to expand, with more gene targets, labware options, and yields—soon reaching 100 million unique SKUs on our website. All of this is supported by our inventory of multi-guide RNA designs.

These are stored in tubes at –20°C, suspended in water at very specific concentrations.

But—as many of you know—nothing’s ever that exact in practice. Each tube:

• Has a unique gene target

• Has a unique volume

• Has a unique concentration

We currently manage about 50,000 tubes in storage.

Fulfilling Orders

We fulfill based on yield (e.g., 150 picomoles, 1.5 nanomoles). Since every tube has different volume and height, this becomes a logistical nightmare.

How do we fulfill 100 million product types from 50,000 unique tubes?

The Answer: Build a Work Cell

We’ve automated as much as possible.

At the core of our work cell is the LYNX 730i with a VVP (Variable Volume Pipetting) head.

The VVP head is critical, as each tube needs a custom volume. This wasn’t just a new product—it was a whole new automation challenge.

We needed a liquid handler with:

• High precision and accuracy (delivering exactly what we sell)

• High speed (to keep up with order volume)

• Independent channels (not feasible with fixed 96-channel heads)

• Liquid Level Detection (LLD) (to adapt to unique tube volumes)

• Wide volume range support: from 3 µL to 400 µL, across all products

This required a powerful backend software and a liquid handler that could match our needs.

Fulfillment Workflow

Here’s a simplified version of the process:

1. Assign appropriate tubes to each customer well

   • Consider inventory availability

   • Plate layout preferences

   • Expiry rotation for inventory management

2. Rack tubes

   • We use SPT Compound and Lab-to-Lab for this step

   • Strategic tube arrangement saves significant liquid handling time

3. Transfer the correct volumes into the customer plates

   • A single gene might use multiple tubes

   • Transfers optimized to minimize time and maximize throughput

This is a dynamic mapping process from our inventory plates to the customer plates, and it works well.

Challenges & Optimizations

One major challenge was managing variable tube volumes with a fixed Z-height VVP system.

Thanks to Dynamic Devices, we leveraged LLD to:

• Identify high-volume tubes

• Do primary transfers first

• Then aspirate excess liquid to reduce displacement

• Finish with low-volume, precision transfers

This solution allowed us to fully utilize each tube while maintaining accuracy.

Performance Highlights

• At peak, we were pulling 2,000 inventory tubes per day

• That’s up to 8,000 customer wells fulfilled daily, 5 days/week

• All data is logged, giving us full traceability and confidence in accuracy

• We validated volume transfers from 3 µL to 190 µL, with excellent CVs and accuracy

The LYNX does the heavy lifting in a complex pipeline. Solid performance here gives us the breathing room needed in downstream processes.