LabAutomation 2006 - SLAS

LabAutomation2006
4:30 pm Tuesday, January 24, 2006 Track 5: Frontiers Beyond BioPharma Room: Sierra/Ventura
Wyndham Palm Springs Hotel
Elliott Liu
E. L. Consulting
Hollis, New Hampshire
ElliottLiu@alum.mit.edu
Clinical Research: The Six Sigma Way
Process improvement has been a dominant movement in many manufacturing industries in the last two decades. Most of the pharmaceutical
and biopharmaceutical companies have not broadly recognized integration of breakthrough process improvement methods with clinical
research practices. Although this phenomenon is interdisciplinary, its internal structure and the nature of its interactions with other disciplines
in clinical development organizations have not been studied in depth. This presentation will discuss the author’s research and analysis of the
strategy and methodology that could break through improvement of cycle time and error reduction in conducting clinical trials.
9:00 am Wednesday, January 25, 2006 Track 5: Frontiers Beyond BioPharma Room: Sierra/Ventura
Wyndham Palm Springs Hotel
Miguel Maccio
Co-Author(s)
Wyeth
Dan Davolos
Pearl River, New York
Duncan Bell
macciom@wyeth.com
Wyeth
Modular Automation Platforms: A Case Study of a Flexible NMR Sample Preparation Robot
This talk presents a variety of features used by our Department in the design and integration of Automation Platforms. A challenging project
is the automation of NMR sample preparation. The dispensing of highly volatile or viscous solute into the typical 4 mm ID NMR glass tube,
and the subsequent capping of the tube, presents unique problems. An angled incremental single channel dispensing technique prevents
bubble formation when a 0.1 molar protein based solute is used. A novel gripper finger design, used in conjunction with in-house fabricated
Teflon caps, allows reliable capping of NMR tubes. In-situ vortexing minimizes vial handling with increased throughput. Magnetic mounting
of robot tools (hands) provides precise snap-in positioning with collision-safe breakaway. This simplifies crash recovery during development
testing and production use. A wraparound Safety Enclosure with modular safety circuit fulfills ANSI/RIA R15.06-1999 Safety Requirements.
Flexible control software permits run interruption for loading and preparation of additional NMR tubes. Prepared samples may be removed
during run interruption. A “Fly-By” barcode scanning tool enables positive compound sample ID with improved throughput. Pre-existing
instrument control software is conveniently interfaced to a Scheduler application through an open-architecture instrument integration
framework. This framework allows the development of automation platform independent Middleware for Schedule and Assay portability. A
new generation of Low-power, lightweight, portable and expandable platforms is also presented where a building block tandem approach is
used in conjunction with the Rent-a-robot concept for robot recycling.
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