SLAS 2020 European Sample Management Symposium

The discovery and production of biologic therapeutics is an ever-expanding frontier in the biotech/pharmaceutical sector. As a result, the need has arisen to develop efficient and robust means of managing biomolecules such as nucleic acids and proteins, and to address some of the unique challenges they present to the sample management community. These two categories of reagents are particularly relevant because nucleic acids are foundational for the production of suitable protein/antibody drug candidates and the protein reagents needed to support the drug discovery pipeline. When managed across individual labs, potential can exist for these important research samples to be unavailable for use in the broader organization or to be discarded due to unknown or compromised sample identity, integrity and/or location.

This talk will highlight workflow optimization strategies, including automation and bioinformatics, employed in Genentech’s BioMolecular Resources Sample Management facility that enable us to empower research by providing an efficient means to receive, store, produce, track and distribute these materials. We will focus on our ongoing efforts to develop new high-throughput automated processes for sample pooling to support large and small scale protein expression workflows and other research applications. We will also share our future vision for a state-of-the-art nucleic acid and protein sample management facility and the current challenges associated with implementation of this vision.