Chi.Bio: An open-source automated experimental platform for biological science research

Abstract

The precise characterisation and manipulation of in vivo biological systems is critical to their study.1 However, in many experimental frameworks this is made challenging by non-static environments during cell growth,2, 3 as well as variability introduced by manual sampling and measurement protocols.4 To address these challenges we present Chi.Bio, a parallelised open-source platform that offers a new experimental paradigm in which all measurement and control actions can be applied to a bulk culture in situ. In addition to continuous-culturing capabilities (turbidostat functionality, heating, stirring) it incorporates tunable light outputs of varying wavelengths and spectrometry. We demonstrate its application to studies of cell growth and biofilm formation, automated in silico control of optogenetic systems, and readout of multiple orthogonal fluorescent proteins. By combining capabilities from many laboratory tools into a single low-cost platform, Chi.Bio facilitates novel studies in synthetic, systems, and evolutionary biology, and broadens access to cutting-edge research capabilities.