Description

An instrument to automate extraction of cylindrical cores from tissue biopsies stored in Formalin Fixed Paraffin Embedded (FFPE) blocks.  We took an existing third party liquid handling robot and modified it for our application.  The project involved mechanical design, machining, computer vision, C# programming, and electronics design.

Unique Notes

Many laboratory robots are single application instruments.  That is, they were designed to only do one application.  This leads to obsolete instruments across labs, especially after a project or grant has been completed.  We chose to take a generic liquid handling robot and modify it for this application so that the end user can not only use the instrument for FFPE coring, but also for generic pipetting operations common in many other projects.  This maximizes the flexibility of the instrument for the end user.

Almost all the parts designed were fabricated in-house using rapid prototyping techniques (mostly waterjet, some 3D printing, and some work on the manual mill/lathe) in order to facilitate iterations and design improvements.  Some examples of the many parts made in-house are the 45 degree acrylic mirrors, locking cams, illumination assemblies, and ejection mechanisms.