Robotic Approaches to High-Throughput Molecular Biology

The book covers the fundamental principles of robotic approaches in biomedical science, with special emphasis on high-throughput DNA- and protein-technologies, which form the backbone of experimental work aimed at the comprehensive description of biological systems (systems biology). Molecular biologists working in these areas face particular challenges due to the rapid emergence of new methods derived from a wide variety of fields (biochemistry, bioinformatics, programming, experimental design and large-scale data analysis, mechatronics, etc.). This essential reading will define all key concepts in laboratory robotics (hardware and software), while presenting a range of robotic applications for high-throughput microbiological culturing and cloning, DNA/RNA and protein purification techniques. In addition, detailed explanations of the underlying principles and numerous practical tips on how to avoid common pitfalls will enable even the non-experts to get robotic methods successfully established in their laboratories.