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BiologIC Technologies in Cambridge aims to build a “desktop PC of biology”, says co-founder Richard Vellacott to Professional Engineering. The ‘digital bio-processing unit’ is designed to speed up work in laboratories on everything from new medicines to fight coronavirus, 3D-printed meat to more environmentally-friendly biofuels.
Modern laboratories are often essentially collections of very sophisticated robots and scientists are required to go from one to another, eating into their time to do “creative biology”, says Vellacott. “What we are trying to do is shrink that down to a lab in a box… that can let the scientists do what they are best at.”
The start-up, which is still in a very early stage, has developed a conventionally-manufactured desktop base unit into which cartridges are placed. The Rubix cube-sized cartridges, which are 3D-printed using the first full-colour, multi-material J826 Stratasys printer in the UK, are designed to process a range of biological material including human DNA. The cartridges can be connected together as modules, and they precisely control the movement of fluids inside.
“To build this lab in a box you need multi-material functionality,” says Vellacott. “For example, you need very clear materials which let you see the biology [materials] going through the system. You need the elastomers to be able to control the movement of fluids through the system. Being able to print this on the Stratasys system fundamentally enables that.”
The units currently combine four materials, but the team hopes to utilise the printer’s eight-material capability in future.
Printing also enables much greater complexity in the design without prohibitively high costs from multiple components, says Vellacott. “You can get a lot of power from a relatively small footprint. Because complexity is essentially free in 3D printing, the more complexity we can get in, it gets more powerful but the economics don’t change.”
The company hopes its rapid and adaptable manufacturing method will enable it to build tens of thousands of cartridges to enable scientists to tackle complex problems in a range of fields.
“With the world in the current state it is, everyone is looking at life science businesses and we realise, at times like this, that our help is needed,” says Vellacott. “What BiologIC wants to do is really make a major difference in life science and people’s lives.”
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