How Adding Automated Microbial Services Enhance Core Lab Profitability

Introduction

Is your core lab taking part in the microbial discovery boom?

In recent years, research centered on microbial discovery has skyrocketed. In fact, microbe and microbiome studies that support human, animal, agricultural, and marine health have exploded in numbers. For example, in 2022, a bibliometric analysis found that studies on the role of the human gut microbiome in health and disease had alone resulted in nearly 45,000 academic publications over the previous 25 years—with an exponential increase over the last 2 decades.¹ Further, the number of articles supported by funding for microbial research had risen to 80% in the previous 5 years, reflecting the increased attention on the field.¹

Despite this incredible growth, researchers face a common bottleneck—isolating individual microbial species from complex samples containing potentially thousands of different microbes. The isolation process is tedious, time-consuming, and requires personnel with specialized skills.

To better understand the microbiome and each species’ role within it, however, it is necessary for researchers to isolate individual species and characterize them using a variety of genomic, transcriptomic, proteomic, and metabolomic techniques.

Offering automated, high-throughput microbial isolation and cultivation services would give core labs an attractive new capability for researchers looking to rapidly advance their work while driving more sample volume through their existing analytical services. Not only does this offer an opportunity to improve profitability, but core labs also become a critical contributor to advancing microbiome science.

Resolving the bottleneck in microbial isolation

Most microbial studies begin with the isolation and cultivation of microbes from a complex, mixed sample. Traditional culture methods using Petri dishes are labor-intensive, lack scalability, and can miss rare and slow growing species that are overcome by fast-growing species. Multiple subculturing steps, specialized media, or altered environmental conditions may be required to capture the great diversity of species in a microbiome sample.

Today, there is a way to automate this process. The Prospector^® automated isolation and cultivation platform from Isolation Bio can rapidly generate diverse isolate libraries at scale and can be operated by anyone in the laboratory, with no microbiology training required. The Prospector^® uses high-throughput cultivation array technology to sort individual microbes into 6000+ nanoscale cultivation chambers that enable the growth of thousands of microcolonies simultaneously. Physical separation of individual bacteria enables rare, slow, and fast-growing species to grow side-by-side. One isolation experiment on the Prospector^® can replace 10s to 100s of Petri dish cultures, and the system automatically picks and transfers single isolates into standard multi-well plates for use in downstream characterization assays.

Beyond microbial isolation: downstream assays that provide answers

Microbial isolation is only the first step in revealing answers to complex questions regarding microbial functions. Live isolates are key to advancing microbiome science and they must be further characterized using technologies common in core labs.

Metagenomic shot-gun sequencing, targeted DNA sequencing, 16S rRNA/18S/ITS sequencing, PCR, and mass spectrometry reveal a wealth of information that helps researchers unravel the taxonomic composition of microbial communities (bacteria, viruses, archaea, and eukaryotes) and identify new species and strains. Gene expression studies, protein and metabolite assays, and non-molecular testing like ELISAs can be instrumental in identifying important biomarkers, drug targets, and functional roles contributed by individual species to the health of the microbial community or as pathogens in disease.

In addition to data generation, researchers also need bioinformatics and data analysis services to interpret their findings and consultative support to plan future experiments. By adding microbial isolation to existing multi-omics capabilities, core labs create a sample-to-answer pipeline for microbial research.

The bottom line for core labs

By offering automated microbial isolation services and extensive ‘omics capabilities under one roof, core labs make it easy for microbial researchers to submit samples that can be funneled through the services pipeline. This translates into greater opportunities for revenue and increased profitability on existing core lab services.

The automated Prospector^® platform seamlessly integrates into the core lab facility workflow with a small, bench-saving footprint and little maintenance. The Prospector^® is easy to operate and offers microbial researchers an alternative to traditional culture methods, potentially saving them months to years of microbial isolation work and accelerating discovery.

Ready to learn how to expand your capabilities with the ProspectorReady to learn how to expand your capabilities with the Prospector^®?