I performed remote synbio experimentation over the cloud many years ago now. (Seems like a lifetime ago.) I had two webcams and an industry biorobot and I ran unix-style commands on the laboratory PC using cygwin for network cloud operations and biorobot commands. I wrote both ends of the software for biorobot control; the server side to operate in the lab, and the client side to issue commands remotely (my Perl Robotics software). At the home office I ran VideoLAN to receive the two video streams.
-- The remote-operation results would be much more hi res today, with 1080p cameras, compared to the 360p webcams I was using. Frame rate was surprisingly good. Network latency (even up to 500 ms or so) was surprisingly not much of a problem. The experiments I ran were for DNA preprep and successful with caveats. Biotech robotic platforms have extreme downsides. They do not handle mechanical or liquid tolerance faults well. I constantly had to run flush steps due to robot handler error (time consuming and expensive). Laboratory access is always required for specific manual labor such as reloading new tips, refilling reagent reservoirs, and sometimes issuing a hard equipment reboot. The equipment reboots would be less of a problem these days as the embedded platforms have become much more stable. DO NOT USE MICROSOFT WINDOWS.
I was able to run complete protocols, start to finish. The most successful completion was with the version using magbeads which are very forgiving with biorobotics but expensive and volatile. The physical platform needed to be carefully configured and calibrated for the protocol. It is not good for arbitrary protocols or 1-off projects. That is the major downside.
Based on the expense, complexity, and large initial R&D needed per protocol, I don't believe it is a good fit for an ad hoc DIYbio style environment. It is very useful for highly repetitive experimentation or high volume manufacturing in a controlled environment.
I don't think "browser based" would be on the desirable list of requirements. Use the command-line and text-data files. It is more powerful, more consistent, and scriptable, especially for a batch operation. A browser interface would be significant over-design and introduce more problematic layers. "User interface" is the very least of the concerns. Consider the main problem to be the reliably of sucking up a microliter of liquid and depositing a single, specifically-sized droplet into a very tiny tube, as well as the repeatability of this operation. Having a fancy javascript UI frontend to this ability is adding risk to each experimental run. Consider the more real problems to be precise humidity and temperature control of the lab room, keeping the camera lenses clean, avoiding arm collisions due to equipment or protocol error, etc.
On Friday, May 29, 2020 at 11:03:36 PM UTC-7, Andrey Samokhvalov wrote:
Hey, all!
I am thinking about bio cloud laboratory[1] targeted on the do-it-yourself bio community, a bit naive, but anyway I am curious what you think about it.
I would appreciate it if you share with me your concerns.
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## Jonathan Cline
## jcline@ieee.org
## Mobile: +1-805-617-0223
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