Many years ago The LabMan visited some agri-science labs at DuPont, and came away astounded that the scientists there were doing sophisticated recombinant DNA research that rivaled anything I had seen in my industry (BioPharma).  And they were tinkering with using automation for the tasks, just like us.  Except for the company name, the labs were like any state-of-the-art biochemistry labs of the day.  "Down on the Farm" never seemed quite the same to me again.  So TheLabMan thought this month he'd get an update on that industry from Jason Abbas, Research Scientist at Syngenta Seeds Inc., an International Agri Business.  Jason is also an ALA Board member. 

For those not familiar with Syngenta and the Ag industry, tell us a little about the focus of the agriculture science industry going into the 21st century.

Syngenta is a world-leading agribusiness committed to sustainable agriculture through innovative research and technology.  With products in Crop Protection and Seeds, Syngenta helps growers around the world increase their productivity and address the world’s growing demand for food, feed and fuel.  As the population continues to grow, the amount of arable land available does not.  Issues such as water scarcity and land availability dictate the need for significant progress in technology and productivity.

Describe the focus and type of science that goes on in the agriculture science industry.

I  think it would surprise some people to learn about the breadth and complex science that today’s agricultural research involves.  There was a time when the agricultural industry stood back and watched pharma and high technology lead the way.  Today, agricultural research is much more actively involved and is proactively driving innovation.  Because of the complexity involved with producing high quality, safe, and innovative products agricultural research today has major efforts focused on environmental science, formulation science and chemical discovery, many biotechnology efforts, genomics, etc.

With regard to laboratory automation applications in your industry, how is it different? 

In many ways, we face similar challenges to our colleagues in other industries.  We interface with many of the same vendors, ask the same questions, and share similar successes as well.  Some of the differences are obvious.  Despite the fact we may be performing sequencing reactions, PCR, transformations, or other activities similar to researchers involved in animal research, we have the added complexity that we may be working with one of many crops with it’s own set of requirements.  So flexibility is a key issue in our laboratories.  We often ask many things of our lab automation.  It may need to have a very wide range of volume capabilities to deal with a variety of assays or be able to deal with many plate types. 

Are there types of automation projects that are quite unique to your industry?

Because we are working with plant tissue and seed tissue, we definitely have the need for some specialized automation.  Some of the more obvious examples are related to how we efficiently, quickly, and without error sample millions of plants of differing types each year.  This need dictates that we move some our “laboratory” automation to the field.  Some examples of this include high throughput phenotyping capabilities, plant sampling automation, and point-of-care (so-to-speak) assays in the fields and greenhouses.

How is lab automation the same as many in other industries? 

As mentioned previously, we want many of the same things that other industries do.  Fast, cheap, reliable, flexible,. . . . . We have similar needs related to compound storage, liquid handling, spectroscopy, etc.  I believe another area where there are many similarities is related to maintaining chain of custody of samples and assays as they enter the laboratory environment.  With the growing demand for lab analysis in agricultural research, we are faced with the issue that our technology has caught up to our ability to analyze and track all the data that we generate.

Do you address lab automation needs at Syngenta via a centralized group of resources or via a decentralized approach? 

Lab automation needs at Syngenta are driven internally primarily through a decentralized approach.  Because we are a large global company involved in many areas of research, this approach works best for us.  We do however work with one another to share ideas and solutions to problems so that we are not working on divergent efforts or duplicating efforts.

Does your philosophy lean more toward “build” or “buy” automation solutions? 

I would say that we have a bit of a mixed model that we use to address our automation needs.  For much of what we do, we prefer to access technology and even perform some development efforts by seeking out off-the-shelf solutions and expertise outside Syngenta.  We also have many efforts that are either proprietary or very custom.  For some of these efforts, we do have an internal group that can provide engineering, IT/IS, and project management expertise to help us develop a custom solution

Does the lab automation technology providing community (i.e. vendors) meet the needs of your industry as well as they do other industries – such as the pharma industry?

The ag industry has for years, and still does to some extent, dealt with having to purchase products that are on the market because of a need in pharma.  This often meant much more customizing and modifying of equipment to make it suit our needs.  I am happy to say that many of the technology providers have recognized the opportunity that exists in this industry and are beginning to develop products with agricultural research in mind.  

Until Next TIme,

Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto!