21 - SUSTAINABILITY: We are the robots

Recently, I had the opportunity to attend the European Laboratory Research & Innovation Group (ELRIG) Drug Discovery Conference 2022.

A meeting of more than 1,500 delegates over two days with a raft of scientific and technology talks and posters. It was reassuring to see that sustainability struck a consistent chord amongst the topics. My sustainability highlights are discussed in this article.

Sanofi described how it managed to replace single-use plastic pipette tips with reusable steel nozzles in a high-throughput nanobody screening set-up. The move was initially driven by an acute shortage of pipette tips during COVID. Lowered costs and reduced plastic waste, however, meant that the reusable tips stayed the course.

Meanwhile, AstraZeneca Open Innovation launched their inaugural CoSolve sustainability challenges: ‘ways to enable filter tip re-use or recycling’ and ‘ways to improve recycling or circularity of chemical solvents’.

After entries close in December 2022, a shortlist will be selected to pitch ideas in March 2023 and the winners could get the opportunity to develop their proposals in partnership with AstraZeneca.

Takara Bio showcased improved models of human disease using 3D organoids. These produce more ‘human-like’ data early on in drug development and reduce reliance on resource intensive and ethically challenging animal models. The overarching aim being to improve the predictability of clinical results and prevent surprise clinical trial failures.

GSK explained how investment in understanding the environmental impact of various commonly used chemical reagents and solvents is paying dividends by helping to make greener choices in chemical development.

It was a talk from Arctoris CEO Martin-Immanuel Bittner, however, that really captured my imagination. The company’s USP is the automation of research using robots. Robots are already utilised in pharma, but Arctoris’ concept goes further.

Its robots run more experiments and record more complete data. The robotic precision removes human error and improves certainty. This results in a rich and organised data which feeds beautifully into the burgeoning field of AI enabled drug discovery.

Just a few years ago, remote labs were a hard sell. In the wake of enforced homeworking during the COVID-19 pandemic, however, attitudes towards remote working have softened in the research industry. More to the point, many researchers are realising that externally run labs offers improved business continuity.

Martin likened the shift towards centralised labs to the tech boom that came on the back of cloud technology. Just as tech companies no longer need to build and maintain their own servers, grassroots biotech and pharma companies will soon be able to get themselves off the ground without even needing their own lab.

Moreover, this kind of remote robotic lab paradigm comes with a plethora of potential sustainability advantages. Better decision-making early in drug development based on high quality data can reduce late-stage attrition of drug candidates, preventing resources being poured into projects that eventually fail. Centralisation also means that scientific equipment can be run at higher levels of utilisation, reducing the resource burden of building, servicing and maintaining equipment.

In addition, scientists can implement their protocols from anywhere in the world. This brings the two-fold benefit of slashing carbon emissions from commuting and making access to top-class equipment more equitable.

Right now, it seems a brave new world, but the vision of companies like Arctoris could give researchers more time to spend pondering results and deciding how to progress projects, with sustainability benefits to boot. Surely that’s a good thing.