Biofactorial: LSI’s High-Throughput Biology and Automation Facility

Compound screening is at the heart of many probe and drug discovery projects. Biofactorial enables investigators to access small volumes of compounds for screening projects performed at the facility, and can support activities from assay design, screening, secondary assay screening, through to preliminary SAR. Small molecule libraries include bio-actives and screening collections (see below under Libraries).

The facility has access to a large library of metagenomic samples (see below under Libraries).  These resources are available for use by clients to explore novel protein or biosensor discovery, and opens the door to unique enzyme discovery for synthetic biology applications.

• QPix Colony Picker - allows for picking, replicating, and re-arraying colonies from agar plates to 96- and 384-well plates
• KingFisher Apex - an automated magnetic-particle processing system for the extraction of DNA, RNA, and proteins in 24- and 96-well formats
• QuantStudio qPCR - real time PCR machine in 96- and 384- well formats
• Agilent Bravo - a liquid handling platform used for DNA and RNA purification for NGS
• Labcyte Access Workstation - including an Echo for tip-less acoustic liquid dispensing for small volume reactions.
• Illumina Miseq - typically used for amplicon sequencing but can also be used for low coverage shotgun sequencing applications

Plate Readers

Capable of accepting up to 1536-well microplates, for detection of absorbance, luminescence, fluorescence and time-resolved fluorescence.

• BMG Labtech PHERAstar FSX
• BMG Labtech NEPHELOstar (nephelometer)
• Thermo Scientific Varioskan FLASH
• Perkin Elmer Victor2
• Biotek PowerWave XS
• Thermo Cellomics ArrayScan VTi
• Thermo CellInsight CX5
• Thermo EVOS FL Auto
• Applied Biosystems QuantStudio 6 Pro

Bioanalyzers

Analyses sample quality (sizing, quantification, integrity, and purity) through automated electrophoresis.

• Agilent 2100 Bioanalyzer
• Agilent TapeStation (access)

Liquid Handlers/Dispensers

Tip-based, cassette-based, acoustic, and pinning - our collection of liquid handlers will allow for rapid dispensing of volumes as low as 25nL.

• Labcyte ECHO 525 Acoustic Handler
• Agilent Bravo
• Thermo Multidrop CombiNL
• Matrix Hydra
• Biomek 3000
• Biomek Fx
• Biotek MultiFlo
• Biotek EL406 and ELx405 plate washers
• Matrix PlateMate Plus (pinning and tip-based)
• Matrix WellMate

Access Workstation

A fully integrated robot capable of replicating entire workflows. An all-in-one workstation bringing together the ECHO acoustic liquid handler, PHERastar plate reader, thermocycler, Combi liquid dispenser, Cytomat incubator, centrifuge, plate sealer, peeler and labeller.

Bio-Actives

Compounds with identified biological activity:

• Prestwick Off-patent drugs (1200 compounds)
• Antimicrobials (680 compounds)
• Sigma LOPAC (1200 compounds)
• Microsource and Biomol selected bioactives (1500 compounds)
• Selleckchem FDA approved and passed Phase 1 Drug Library (3372 compounds)
• Cayman Lipid 1 Bioactives (1037 compounds)

Screening Collections

(Overlap between libraries is <1%)

• CCBN library (collection of 26,000 diverse compounds from Maybridge and Chembridge)
• Chembridge DiverSet library (50,000 compounds)
• Enamine and Chembridge collection (64,000 compounds)

We maintain an archive of over 125 large insert fosmid libraries encompassing over 200,000 unique clones sourced from diverse natural and engineered environments. With an average insert size of over 40,000 base pairs these libraries collectively encode over 8 million predicted open reading frames that can be screened for the production of biocatalysts, biosensors, and unique molecules. Fosmid library sources include:

In addition to archived libraries, we are able to construct custom libraries using facility infrastructure.

Engineered Environments

• Short chain alkane degrading
• Toluene-degrading
• Naphtha-degrading
• Oilsands tailings pond
• Coal bed cuttings and produced waters
• Pulp and paper mill hog fuel pile

Natural Environments

• Line P - Pacific Ocean
• Saanich Inlet
• Sakinaw Lake
• Lakelse hot spring
• Williams Lake soil horizons

Organismal Environments

• Beaver
• Human
• Sponge

We have a 2015 collection of the Sigma-Aldrich human (TRC-Hs1.0) and mouse (TRC-Mm1.0) lentiviral vector-based shRNA libraries. The libraries include a broad range of gene families, functional classes, and druggable targets, with each hairpin sequence cloned into the lentiviral vector pLKO.1. Multiple constructs were created per gene to ensure adequate coverage of the target gene. For more detailed information on the libraries, visit Sigma-Aldrich.