Congrats to Sina Wittmann, the winner of our 'Win a Labbot' contest at this year's 'Cellular Mechanisms Driven by Phase Separation' Symposium at EMBL Heidelberg!
We ended last week on a high note by announcing Sina as the winner. Out of 25 high-quality submissions, Sina's proposal stood out. Labbot will serve as both a workhorse for current experiments and an enabler for new, previously impossible experiments.
Here is her response to how Labbot would give her research an advantage:
"My research heavily relies on in vitro testing of different protein variants using phase separation assays, binding assays and buffer screens. In the past, I have done this using 384-well plates which means each condition needs to be pipetted individually. This is extremely tedious and time consuming, limiting the number of mutants we would be able to test (~4/protein).
The Labbot seems designed exactly for our needs. In a fast and easy-to-use format, it allows us to draw phase diagrams at varying temperature, pH and salt concentrations, all factors that critically affect the condensation of TFs. Thanks to the titration, it will give even more precise phase diagrams in a smaller amount of time. For my group, the Labbot would be a game changer. It would enable us to screen a much higher number of mutants (~20/ protein) and more different TFs. This will allow us to understand condensation of TFs in much greater detail than with our 384-well approach, allowing us to generate more impactful data."
We're just as eager as Sina to head back to Germany for the installation and onboarding of her new instrument.
A huge thank you to all participants, speakers, organizers (special shout-out to Erkin Ibragimov for taking excellent care of us), and our friendly exhibition neighbours PicoQuant and SYNCELL INC.
