SiLA in Laboratory Practice

The upcoming high-throughput technologies are a new challenge for personnel and facilities in life science. These new technologies are enabling the acquisition of extensive knowledge in medical and pharmaceutical research. However, the new requirements can only be met by lab automation solutions. The research work of Fraunhofer IPA in the area of lab automation shows that the conditions in the lab are subject to dynamic effects and thus likewise lab automation solutions are inquired. The requested flexibility is currently unavailable on the market; instead there is a multitude of proprietary isolated applications. The necessary integration of single devices for the coverage of complex biochemical protocols in particular, is contrarian to user requirements due to high efforts in both expenses and time. An alternative to the proprietary isolated applications and the associated integration effort is given by a common communication standard for the cross linking of lab devices. Researchers at Fraunhofer IPA are developing exactly this communication standard as a member of the SILA (Standardization in Lab Automation) initiative in synergy with partners from industry. Lab devices of different manufacturers will be communicating on the basis of this standard in the near future und thus meeting the new dynamic requirements in the laboratory. This flexibility contains a high innovation potential for researchers, since no longer an inflexible facility and a huge integration effort are the limiting factors. The researcher can act dynamically if a requirement is changing and is now able to reconfigure the facility without high efforts in both expenses and time.