The 2023 Society for Laboratory Automation and Screening (SLAS) Conference, held in San Diego, CA from Feb. 25 to March 1, featured an exhibit hall that was full of energy from both scientists seeking new answers to technical challenges and vendors providing those solutions.  

The exhibit hall had more than 350 vendors who delivered more than 60 new products. There were a variety of new instruments and technologies that excited Lab Manager’s editors, including the conference’s 2023 New Product Award winners. 

Here, we highlight several choices based on the products’ differentiated capabilities and those that provided opportunities to transform some element of the work done by many kinds of labs. 

Enhanced imaging

Thrive Bioscience, headquartered in Beverly, MA, has developed CellAssist Imaging, which can deliver more than 100 focal planes to image three-dimensional cell structures while keeping the cells under the appropriate environment with temperature and atmosphere controls to not disrupt the incubator’s cell culture environment. The imaging includes bright-filed and phase contrast at four, 10, and 20x magnification. The system can also address image correction for the physical variations in cell culture plates, like rounded bottoms. The robotic model can handle up to 50 plates.

Increased sensitivity

Carterra, headquartered in Salt Lake City, UT, debuted the LSA^XT, its latest high-throughput surface plasmon resonance (HT-SPR) instrument. The instrument combines microflow capabilities, multiplexed SPR, and fully automated experiments. The new instrument adds enhanced sensitivity and faster data collection rates to previous models. These enhancements open the HT-SPR technology to exciting fields of study, such as proteolysis-targeting chimeras, membrane proteins, DNA-encoded library compounds, and rapid kinetic systems. It also extends the analyses to lower molecular weight analytes, down to 500 u, like kinase inhibitors. 

Streamlining workflows

Eprep, headquartered in Victoria, Australia introduced the ePrep Sample Preparation Workstation. This tool is designed to provide rapid and complex sample preparation for chromatography and mass spectrometry experiments. It’s use of analytical syringes enables workflows with organic solvents without any leaching of contaminants from plastic pipette parts or tips. It combines an easy-to-use software and a highly configurable deck to make even complex sample preparation easy to navigate. 

The system replaces human involvement with highly accurate and precise delivery of solvents and reagents. It can be loaded with a variety of syringe sizes to make the different volumes required in the workflow easy and accurate. This instrument can help deliver more accurate results with significantly lower solvent volumes and prevent repetitive use injuries for lab staff. 

Exploring complex research

Synthace, headquartered in London, UK has introduced the Experiment Platform, which delivers new ways to approach high-throughput experimentation and design of experiments. They are providing powerful software tools that help researchers more effectively probe the enormous complexity of biological systems. By applying sophisticated software to integrating the experimental design, experimental planning, lab equipment control, and data aggregation, they are enabling scientists to probe far more complex research ideas and spend more time thinking about potential solutions than on executing, processing, and remembering the details of individual measurements.