Before I joined Hudson Control Group in June, I was impressed with the variety, reliability and research implications of their robotic products. But it is the way in which this equipment is integrated and controlled by Hudson's Softlinx software that convinced me that something special was going on here.

As research progresses, we continue to see how complex signal pathways, and simple protein target-based screens often give incomplete results. Observing how Hudson's SoftLinx software integrates the actions of multiple instruments and their data produced an idea: what if you could develop a simple, affordable Workcell that could do preliminary, high-throughput screening and, on-the-fly, do a more intensive assay on only those same samples that showed promise, without re-loading the system?

For example, a workcell can contain multiple readers with complementary capabilities. A faster reader can be used as a prescreen to determine on the fly if a sample should be placed in a slower, more detailed experiment. Imagine a fluorescence spectrophotometer, like the Bio-Tek Synergy 4 combined with a Guava EasyCyte flow cytometer. Fluorescence-tagged antibodies can be added to a cell sample, and excess can be washed off. This cell can then be examined by the spectrophotometer to see how much antibody remained in the cell. Only those that show a predetermined level of absorption can be transferred to the flow cytometer, following any appropriate additional processing.

SoftLinx can carry out this sort of process with ease, and as a result, one can effectively screen a library of compounds through a flow cytometery much larger than one would normally consider. Softlinx can even store all of the initial fluorescence hits, and create a matrix of best hits (based on a variable cut-off); this can then be sent to the SOLOSoft program to build a new set of plates for additional screening. This sort of on-the-fly cherry picking is easy given the visual basic back-end software supporting the user defined elements in all of our methods.

In the near future, Hudson Control Group will be introducing many additional assay-based workcells, with sample Softlinx methods provided to illustrate numerous new approaches to collecting and analyzing your data. Look out for a significantly altered website that reflects these changes. Feel free to contact me with your suggestions and ideas to help us build systems that can best meet your needs.