Abstract
The mission of the Association for Laboratory Automation is “To advance science and education related to laboratory automation by encouraging the study, advancing the science, and improving the practice of medical and laboratory automation.” JALA is, of course, one way that ALA works to fulfill this mission. Another way is the unique short course program that ALA offers at its annual conference event, LabAutomation.
ALA's short courses grew from suggestions and proposals by ALA officers, members, prospective instructors, and the vendor community. Their ideas were considered by the ALA Education Committee, which deliberates and decides in which topics to invest ALA resources. These decisions are not easy as the technology and needs of the members and meeting attendees continue to evolve and change. Each year, after LabAutomation, attendance trends and attendee feedback are analyzed and the offerings are reassessed for the next year.
My personal experience with proposing, creating, and teaching a new short course is a testament to the member-driven way in which ALA is governed. It illustrates how, regardless of years of professional experience, we are all students. ALA offers a channel to connect us with the education, information, and ideas to help us succeed. It is my hope that this case study will inspire others to step in, and become part of this dynamic process.
A New Class
The flagship short course offered every year at LabAutomation is “Introduction to Laboratory Automation.” This course provides attendees with an overview of the technology, industry, and issues in a classroom setting, and it is one of the most popular short courses offered by ALA. Since the inception of LabAutomation, there have been a number of attempts to create hands-on companion courses to the Introduction to Laboratory Automation, in which participants would actually get the opportunity to examine real operational issues. Conversations at LabAutomation2005 turned into the first real opportunity to make this goal a reality, and the Liquid Handling Boot Camp short course idea was born. After a proposal was submitted, the ALA Education Committee agreed to support the course for LabAutomation2006.
Course Goals
I and the other prospective instructors of the Boot Camp decided to concentrate on the actual physical issues of liquid handling to both limit the scope to topics we could actually cover in a single 7-hour day and make it easier to generalize. This allowed us to create platform- and manufacturer-independent experiments, and to compare and contrast operational settings and not technologies. We took great care not to promote individual manufacturers or technologies, or to make the course a sales promotion. As such, we did not educate attendees on the different software environments or user interfaces beyond what was needed to run the basic experiment methods that we instructors created. Our priority was to share an overview of how liquid handling works, operational physical challenges, validation and quality procedures and recommendations, and proper safety and decontamination procedures.
This lecture overview was then followed by hands-on experiments.
Logistics Challenges
The biggest challenge in organizing this course was obtaining liquid-handling robots for attendees to use. To be effective, the course needed a maximum ratio of four participants per robot. As with the course offering at LabAutomation2007, we needed six robots for an attendee limit of 24. This translated into about a half million dollars worth of equipment or more, depending on the particular makes and models of the robots. Over the years, various manufacturers were approached and asked to supply equipment with the idea that it could be displayed in the exhibit hall after the course was over. These approaches failed. The manufacturers had justifiable desires to ensure their equipment would be used exclusively, yet could not get over the risk of having their entire booth in the hands of users who had, by definition, never used such equipment before.
The breakthrough occurred at LabAutomation2005 when we met with used equipment vendors who were exhibiting at the meeting. These conversations led to the vendors supplying three systems for the first offering of the course at LabAutomation2006. Unfortunately, we severely underestimated the difficulty in shared use of the systems, and the 6:1 ratio of participants to a machine was not workable. This fact came through loud and clear from those who completed course evaluations. In true ALA form, we listened to what these members had to say, and for LabAutomation2007, we were lucky enough to line up equipment from multiple used-equipment vendors, allowing us to have a workable 4:1 ratio (Fig. 1).
The classroom of the Liquid Handling Boot Camp at LabAutomation2007.
Even with more equipment, however, there were still problems with timing. Preparing six robots, shipping them across the continental United States, and ensuring that they were operational in a day was quite a challenge.
One logistical issue we had not previously considered was that of liability insurance coverage, which was not a minor factor for a large conference event. The insurance carrier's requirements led to changes in what solvents we could use for demonstration and experimental purposes. Obviously, if such a course could have been offered at a university or corporate laboratory, then actual laboratory solvents such as alcohols dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO), and buffer materials such as bovine serum albumin (BSA) and glycerol could have been used. Given the insurance coverage issues and additional requirements placed by the management of the convention center, we came up with workable replacements.
Luckily, a number of nontoxic, nonhazardous household supplies were available. We found that highly viscous materials such as glycerol or high concentration of BSA-containing buffers can be modeled with any of a number of ultra-concentrated liquid dish soaps. These also provided us with substances that easily foamed or created bubbles, another issue we wanted to cover in the short course. Low-adhesion solvent chemicals that could easily drip and cause pipetting problems, such as DMSO or 100% methanol were modeled with kitchen grade white vinegar. Although the properties of white vinegar did not present quite as severe a liquid-handling challenge as the solvents, it still provided enough variability to demonstrate course goals.
Although we were considering replacements for solvents, we also were asked to consider replacements for the dyes we had planned to use. Most scientific dyes were extremely effective, and did not easily wash out of textiles such as clothing, and more importantly to the convention center management, rugs and carpets. Frequently, scientific dyes were toxic if ingested, a concern to the insurance carrier. Food-coloring dyes solved the toxic material issues, but did not offer the ease of cleaning desired by the convention center management. Thanks to personal experience, another alternative presented itself. Most finger paints made for the classroom and home were both nontoxic and water washable. I had personal experience with cleaning such colorants out of textiles successfully, so we set upon a quick program to determine if some of the paints could be detected by a standard visible absorbance plate reader and at what concentrations. After finding three readable paints and the necessary wavelengths and concentrations, we were set.
Lastly, we needed to figure out where we were going to run the course. Luckily, all of the room dimensions for the Palm Springs Convention Center were available online, and a quick computer assisted drafting (CAD) mockup of the approximate expected table sizes needed for the robots allowed us to specify which rooms would work for the class.
The Course at Labautomation2007
The Liquid Handling Boot Camp short course was presented for the second time at LabAutomation2007. Reviews from the previous year and suggestions from the ALA Education Committee led us to improve the course materials, obtain more robots, and add a third instructor. We also limited enrollment to 24 participants to ensure the 4:1 ratio for hands-on time with the robots. Lastly, a number of attendees in 2006 commented that the class was too basic, whereas others commented that it was too advanced. We addressed this by rewriting the class materials and information to emphasize the introductory nature of the course, and to ensure we were teaching at the correct level to interest and engage the attendees. The course sold out in record time, and could easily have been filled three times over given the requests we had.
We had obtained promises from two used equipment suppliers for supplying the six liquid-handling robots. Given the nature of their businesses, we could not be certain which systems would be loaned to the class until a little over a month before the meeting. In mid-December 2006, we confirmed inventories with the companies that were graciously loaning us their equipment. Only after this determination could we start lining up the necessary labware and disposable supplies. Given that we were asking for more equipment than the vendors had room to show in their exhibition booths, special arrangements had to be made for the ALA to cover shipping and storage of one machine from each of the two suppliers. Before the meeting, we prepared demonstration materials, collected supplies and analysis equipment, and prepared the course materials. This only left actually getting the machines into the classroom.
As anyone who has set up laboratory automation can attest, getting a system operational under short notice is difficult. The crates arrived the afternoon before the class. We instructors helped the suppliers unload the crates, and then prepared the classroom, and planned the post-meeting return of the equipment with the moving company. After many hours and working into the night with the employees of the companies loaning us the robots, we had the systems operating. Of course, some labware and disposables did not make it to the meeting as planned. Thankfully, the manufacturers of the robots were gracious enough to donate disposables for our use. We offer profuse thanks to all those who aided this endeavor.
The lecture portion of the short course covered the following topics: (1) Introduction to liquid handling robots (technology and terminology); (2) Safety issues; (3) Pipetting terminology; (4) Pipetting issues and techniques; (5) Reagent and chemical compatibility and handling issues; (6) Validation and QC techniques and options; and (7) Proper decontamination protocols.
Given the materials used, we decided to neglect accuracy, and concentrate on repeatability coefficient of variation (CV) for ease of analyzing the experiments. We also separated the participants into six groups to have them change machines when changing experiments, thus ensuring the most diverse hands-on experience possible. We then introduced the experiments and their goals.
The first experiment centered on understanding the relationship of speed of dispensing for low volumes on repeatability (CV). For the second experiment, we switched to high-viscosity solutes (ultra-concentrated liquid dish soap, colored with one of our readable finger paints) and repeated the experiment. The third experiment examined the use of air gaps with high-viscosity or low-adhesion fluids (finger paint colored white vinegar). In the fourth experiment, the participants examined the issues of pipetting solutes that could foam or bubble (speed vs accuracy). The last two experiments centered on mixing issues.
Results
The class was conducted with relatively few glitches. Equipment problems did occur, but were solved either by instructors or vendor employees. Unfortunately, the lecture portion consumed just under half of the class time. In response, we had to rush to complete experiments. The result was that participants did not get an equal amount of time on each instrument as they cycled through the experiments. However, the attendees did get a solid 3 hours of hands-on time. Overall, the 4:1 ratio did ensure appropriate access to hands-on use by all attendees, as borne out by the attendee reviews of the course. Lastly, the vast majority of those who completed course reviews agreed with the introductory nature of the course and that we were teaching at the appropriate level.
Going Forward
It is clear some modification of the course is necessary to ensure that a greater percentage of time is dedicated to the hands-on use of the liquid-handling robots. As such, we have already begun editing the course materials to reduce the length of the lecture, with the goal of taking only a third of the total class time. This change will allow us to set a consistent length of time for the experiments so each attendee group will get the same amount of time on each machine. Also, we are reworking the six experiments for the first experiment to test dispensing into liquid.
ALA has received requests to present this course at other venues. Obviously, obtaining the equipment is the greatest challenge to doing so. We are exploring options, but they are few when discussing such a large investment in equipment. We are still working on whether we can obtain more than six loaner robots to increase the class size at LabAutomation2008, and hope that the original equipment manufacturers can be part of this endeavor. As with all of the courses taught at LabAutomation, our course reviews and performance will be analyzed by the ALA Education Committee to determine the course's continued value and appropriateness to ALA members.
Conclusion
This is just one example of how ALA programs, services, and events take shape. In all cases, they begin with a desire to fulfill a need expressed by ALA members. They continue with thoughtful peer review and performance analysis to ensure quality and appropriateness. In the case of the Liquid Handling Boot Camp, attendee demand currently far outstrips our ability to obtain equipment. The course continues to evolve to meet the needs of the participants, the goals of the ALA, and to showcase the issues of changing technology. One issue is clear, the user community's desire for a neutral, hands-on course centered on a platform- and manufacturer-independent discussion of liquid handling issues is real.
I would like to acknowledge all those who helped us pull this off. First and foremost, thanks to Petar Stojadinovic, and Justin Provchy, the other instructors for the course. Also tremendous thanks to Phil and Victoria Jackson and Chris Barbagallo and the rest of the staff of Atlantic Lab Equipment, and Rich Tula, Jim O'Keefe, and the rest of the staff of Biodirect for the loan of the robots and the help getting them up and running. For both prearranged and last minute donations of labware and tips, we need to thank LabTrader, Beckman Coulter, Caliper Life Sciences, Perkin Elmer, and Tecan. We thank the Department of Bioengineering at the University of California, San Diego for the loan of their plate reader. We also need to acknowledge the ALA Education Committee and the tremendous work of Brenda Dreier, Barry Sacks, and Katie Woywod for their help with logistics and resource support. Lastly, we thank BTS (biotechserv.com) and TheKissPrincipleInc.com for their recommendations and course assistance.
Sincerely,
Douglas Gurevitch, P.E.
