Acoustic robot races through chemical reactions

Abstract

A robotic system that uses ultrasound pulses to handle minuscule droplets of reagents has helped chemists put a new reaction through its paces at lightning speed (ACS Cent. Sci. 2019, DOI: 10.1021/acscentsci.8b00782). Seeking a faster way to explore the scope of new reactions, Alexander Domling of the University of Groningen and colleagues turned to acoustic dispensing, used for years by cell biologists and biochemists to transfer samples between plates that contain hundreds of little wells. The method relies on precise ultrasound pulses to shoot a nanoliter-sized droplet of liquid out of a well and up into a fresh well on an inverted plate above, where it sticks. The system, made by Labcyte, automatically applies acoustic pulses to one well at a time and moves the destination plate so that it captures preprogrammed combinations of ingredients. This enabled the researchers to investigate the range of isoquinolines that could be produced by