Automated cell culture system launched to fast-track drug discoveries

Until now, large-scale cell culture for generating 2D and 3D biology models has demanded round-the-clock oversight. This is set to change with CellXpress.ai™ Automated Cell Culture System, a cell culture system that uses automation and AI to maintain the 24/7 schedule. The end-to-end, machine learning-enabled system improves workflows by automating feeding and passaging schedules with an integrated incubator, liquid handler, and imager. As well as reducing human error, AI frees researchers from the burden of mundane, repetitive tasks and delivers reproducible results across multiple team sites to enable faster decision-making.

This platform has the potential to usher in a new paradigm of 3D biology-based drug discovery, by enabling scientists to generate more physiologically relevant disease models consistently and at scale. To do this, Molecular Devices has been building an ecosystem of partnerships with industry leaders.

In partnership with HeartBeat.bio, the company is using CellXpress.ai to create the world’s first fully integrated, high-throughput human cardiac organoid screening solution. Automating HeartBeat.bio’s proprietary cardioid technology on this revolutionary platform makes highly standardized organoids applicable for cardiac drug discovery and cardiotoxicity testing. As part of a strategic collaboration with HUB Organoids, the organization works with patient-derived organoids (PDOs) to advance automated intestinal organoid screening technology for both drug efficacy and safety.

During SLAS 2024, Danaher Corporation and Danaher operating company Molecular Devices, with academic collaborators, will announce a new potential solution using liver organoids to predict drug-induced liver injury in the drug discovery process. Predicting drug-induced liver injury with organoids will improve drug safety, accelerate the discovery of new therapies, and more quickly identify the leading cause of drug failure. Not only will this high-throughput technology enable the ‘scale up’ of liver organoids, it will also ‘scale out’ to enable better representation of human diversity in preclinical testing.