According to a study published in HardwareX, scientists from the University of Plymouth used 3D-printed components to build a robotic instrument capable of autonomously monitoring any aquatic species' early phases of development.
A dedicated phenomics facility of LabEmbryoCam instruments will enable the simultaneous screening of more than 3,000 embryos to address pressing global research challenges. Image Credit: University of Plymouth
Biologists and technologists from the University of Plymouth’s EmbryoPhenomics research group developed the LabEmbryoCam over ten years.
It offers a simple and scalable way to visualize and measure the growth of many embryos at once. It can also be used to track embryonic development, a basic biological process that supports the diversity of life on Earth.
Understanding how environmental conditions affect the first stages of life is becoming increasingly important due to environmental change, and this instrument allows scientists to evaluate essential aspects of developing animals such as heart rate, developmental rate, and growth.
The team has made the LabEmbryoCam an open-source project, with both hardware and software designs publicly available and explained in a new study published in HardwareX.
This has allowed them to design a versatile instrument that can be applied to a wide range of research challenges and is available to researchers globally as a platform for adapting it to their own needs.
The study's senior author is Dr. Oliver Tills, a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Plymouth and founder of the EmbryoPhenomics group.
We developed the LabEmbryoCam to provide an accessible window on how animals put themselves together, and what impact the environment has on this. It capitalizes on enabling technologies such as 3D printing and AI. The LabEmbryoCam is enabling us, and others, to address complex research questions that were not otherwise possible. Our opensource ethos makes the capabilities that are central to our own research available to others.
Dr Oliver Tills, Senior Research Fellow, University of Plymouth
Dr. Tills added, “Phenomics – the acquisition of high-dimensional organismal data on an organism-wide scale, is an approach increasingly used in medicine and the crop sciences. The LabEmbryoCam enables users to apply phenomics during the most dynamic and often sensitive period of life.”
“The instruments are already proving pivotal in understanding how embryos’ function and these responses differ markedly compared to later life. This is already proving critical in helping us not only understand the effects of global and ocean warming on individual species but also to identify species, populations, and individuals that are resilient to conditions we are likely to see on our planet in the future,” he further added.
The team has created a dedicated phenomics facility with LabEmbryoCam instruments to support the EmbryoPhenomics group’s research. This allows the simultaneous screening of over 3,000 embryos to solve global research concerns.
In addition to releasing the LabEmbryoCam as open source, they are now selling it through Phenomyx CIC, a Community Interest Company established to increase the reach, accessibility, and impact of this important discovery among academics and educators. The CIC aims to help researchers using phenomics methodologies to examine developing animals.
Components are 3D printed and assembled at Phenomyx CIC’s Plymouth Science Park headquarters, and the instrument has already been marketed to clients in the UK and the United States.
LabEmbryoCam supported groundbreaking research on the early life stages of the Christmas Island red crab by traveling with university researchers to Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean.
Journal Reference:
Ibbini, Z., et. al. (2024) LabEmbryoCam: An opensource phenotyping system for developing aquatic animals. HardwareX. doi.org/10.1016/j.ohx.2024.e00602