"During my PhD time and while working in the pharma industry I
was pipetting ELISAs, FRET- and activity assays. I had to use a
paper checklist that was based on the assay protocol, checking
off each step upon completion. Additionally, for some of the
assays I prepared a color coded sheet of paper lying below my
96-well plate to guide my pipetting and reduce mistakes.
Obviously, the picture was static and unfortunately mistakes
were still common. Anyone that has done a complex essay knows
how frustrating that is when it all has to be repeated. It's
pretty gnarly work. My experience above was mirrored by that of
my colleagues in the department. In my department failed assays
due to mistakes happened on a daily basis. While this provided
some mental comfort, it still sucked that my colleagues and I
were throwing out work so often. The task of pipetting is
mentally demanding, making it prone to mistakes when not highly
concentrated. Especially after short nights living the student
life. I worked with pipetting robots as well in the following
years and thought this is the only way to circumvent this
inefficient way of pipetting assays, but soon learned that
pipetting robots still have their limitations, especially for
non-routine work. At the same time manual pipetting did not
really evolve at all. I asked myself if it’s time for manual
pipetting 2.0? Yes, afterall it’s 2021! And the answer is
AssayHero! A step-by-step interactive wizard that guides you by
colored light: AssayHero."
Dr. Fabian Zehender — founder and CEO