A Modular Automated Platform for Large-scale Drosophila Experiments and Handling

PROJECT SUMMARYABSTRACT Animal model systems are a powerful tool researchers use to investigate almost all aspects of biologygeneticsdevelopmentneurosciencediseaseand moreAnd fruit fliesDrosophila melanogasterwith their small sizeeasy careand remarkable array of available genetic toolkitsoccupy a sweet spot on the model organism spectrumOverof human diseases with a genetic basis have an analogue in the flyand Drosophila have been a part of the research for six Nobel prizesFurthermorethe advent of CRISPR casand other modern genetic tools has opened the door to modeling other diseases and pathwaysleading to greater use of Drosophila for drug screensA great deal of the workand the majority of the budgetinvolved in fly experiments is tedious manual laborand with advances in computer visionmachine learningand other analytic techniquesthe stage is set to automate many phenotypic screensIn this Phase I SBIRwe propose a robotic systemmodular automated platform for large scale experimentsMAPLEthat can accomplish a wide variety of fly handling tasks in Drosophila labsThis robot is the fruit fly version of a liquid handling robotwith a largeopen workspace that can house a plethora of modules and several manipulators that can move small parts and animals around that workspaceBuilding on a collaboration between the de Bivort Lab and FlySorter completed inwe will designfabricate and validate a commercial system that can collect virgin fliesrun behavioral assaysconduct drug screensand adapt to the needs of fly labs through easy to code Python scriptsBy strategically combining modules and instructions to the robotMAPLE can perform a wide variety of tasks in a fly labsaving experimentalists from repetitive chorescutting labor costsand increasing scientific outputJust as pipette robots have become standard equipment in wet labswe envision our fly handling robot will be the engine that powers Drosophila labs in academia and pharmaenabling new kinds of experiments and freeing researchers from the drudgery of fly pushing PROJECT NARRATIVE Fruit fliesDrosophila melanogasterare a powerful model organism used in the study of diseaseneurosciencedevelopmentgeneticsand recently in drug screenstoolargely through phenotypic screeningThis labor intensive work is time consuming and expensiveand ripe for automationWe propose a fly handling robotanalogous to a liquid pipetting robot in a wet labthat can perform a variety of tasks in Drosophila labsfree researchers from the drudgery of fly pushingand enable a broader spectrum of experiments that will increase scientific knowledge