I’ve had the blessed opportunity to work with a wide variety of laboratories—everything from fieldwork to large, fully autonomous lab work cells. I’m currently with Alpine Bio, a small, humble lab in South San Francisco. Our mission is to make proteins using soy as a biofactory. While this presentation has been somewhat influenced by our marketing and leadership teams, I’ll be focusing more on speaking to the content rather than what’s visually on the slides.

As I mentioned before, we are a molecular farming company best known for our production of casein—essentially, we make cheese proteins without relying on cows.

Much like Derek and Jason alluded to earlier, I want to step back and explain why we adopted the Lynx system and how those choices came to be. The challenge was designing an automation setup that worked for two departments with varying needs, could be future-proofed, was user-friendly, and supported a seamless workflow—all while checking my own biases in the process. This was one of the few opportunities where I got to select every part of the automation stack myself.

Key Requirements from the Team

• Small Footprint: Our first lab was more like an office converted into lab space—so space was a major constraint.

• Gripper: We use magnetic bead separations for our genetic screening group, requiring the ability to move deep well plates on and off magnets.

• 96-Well Head: To remove supernatant from deep well plates and handle normalizations.

• Independent Volume Control Channels: Needed for protein screening, since normalization work required varying volumes—both large and small.

• Device Integration: I spec’d additional devices that had to be seamlessly controlled within the system.

• Visual Oversight: As a scientist at heart, I wanted visibility into the workflow—no black tips. I need to see what’s working or not, and I value a responsive and responsible support team.

Discovering Dynamic Devices

During my research, I narrowed it down to four automation vendors. Dynamic Devices came up—specifically through a conversation with Jeff Hurts, who used to work with them. He introduced me to the VVP head, and when I reviewed the Lynx platform, I realized it checked nearly all the boxes.

Initially, we considered the LM730i—it had the smallest footprint available that supported VVP capabilities and included a 96-well VVP head with a gripper. The VVP head stood out because:

• It had no rubber O-rings, so less maintenance.

• It was robust—not prone to breaking down or requiring service every six months.

• The variable volume 96-well head supported our wide volume range needs.

• It could integrate other devices like orbital shakers and off-deck reagent dispensers.

Application & Integration

We use the Omega Bio-Tek Plant DNA Extraction Kit, which involves lots of reagent handling and cleanup steps. Someone earlier asked about working with 32 samples—that’s where our 8-port reagent dispenser manifold (off-deck) comes in. It allows channel-by-channel dispensing and avoids clogging up the deck with reservoirs.

System Expansion

Originally, we planned to use the LM730i, but as more lab automation requirements emerged, we realized we couldn’t fit it on a standard bench. We requested an automation table, and once we had that, it made sense to upgrade to the LM900. The LM900 fit the table and gave us 30 more positions, which was a huge benefit.

Here’s a quick overview of the current setup:

• 25–30 positions available.

• Q1 orbital shaker, heater/cooler orbital shaker, and a gravity-fed waste drain for supernatant removal.

• Off-deck 8-port manifold for reagent dispensing—especially helpful when working with column-specific sample layouts.

Daily Use & Workflow Optimization

You’ll see in the slide (or image), our LM900 is fully decked out. We’ve maximized almost every position. For the protein screening department, we handle:

• Protein extraction

• Quantification

• Normalization

• Special dilutions

This deck configuration meets all their workflow needs.

One of our biggest wins was optimizing normalizations. Manually, it took our scientists one to two hours to normalize 96–192 samples. That repetitive work can lead to injury—I’ve seen it happen. Now, the 96-well VVP head can perform all variable volume normalizations in 10 minutes. It’s not just a time saver—it protects our people.

Performance Validation

We compared manual data to Lynx robot output. While I can’t show all axes due to leadership restrictions, the results were highly concordant. After fine-tuning the liquid classes and calibration curves, we proved that the automation met our scientific needs.