Briefly Bio

AI can now generate scientific ideas at scale. But we need to know if the current state of the art can bridge the gap to physical validation – the phase constrained by what can be tested, how fast, and at what cost. To find out, we have doubled our investment in the AI Scientist programme to £6m. We're backing 12 projects to see if autonomous systems can reason, plan, and run experiments in the real world. These teams are testing the limits of automation on deliberately unforgiving problems: Alzheimer’s and cancer therapeutics, material discovery, and understanding the mechanisms behind battery degradation. Instead of looking for best-case scenarios, we’re looking for limits. Can these systems recover when experiments fail? Can they reason across disciplines? Can they decide what not to try? By doing this, we are learning what happens when machines are asked to do science, and exploring what that means for the future of discovery. Discover the projects: link.aria.org.uk/AIscifpx

Our first partnership – with @brieflybio! It enables liquid handling for scientists with zero automation experience. We decided to partner after seeing their demo, where it only took a molecular biologist 1-2 minutes (not days!) to set up a liquid handling block.

Spending a lot of time translating scientists' workflows into automated ones? Check out @brieflybio's interface that flexibly converts text-based protocols into automation-ready ones. Here's an example for the @Biosero ecosystem. Come see us at @SLAS_Org for a demo!

Can't figure out what changed between experiments? Happened to me so many times... including in my own experiments 🫠 If you too struggle with this type of detective work, we'll be demoing this new feature at @SLAS_Org. Booth 1252

We're announcing a new interface for lab automation to lower the barrier to programming lab robotics. With our partners at @Biosero , we're demoing this at @SLAS_Org. We want to bring more flexibility to automating science. Read more below 👇

Here's a little peak into our new interface to take text-based protocols, structure them, and adapt them to the constraints of an automated system. Come chat to us @brieflybio at our booth at @SLAS_Org if you're interested :)

Stop swearing at Excel when plate layouting Try this instead 🫳

Spend a lot of time making plate maps? We hooked up our plate mapper to our AI copilot in @Briefly. It’s pretty fun.

Results vs Methods section

Using @NotionHQ as your lab notebook? You can embed your Briefly protocols like this 🫰✨

We have a Christmas present for you 🎁 @brieflybio is now free and open to academics. Sign up below 👇

Meet @AgaraBio , an undergraduate-led community lab 🧪 Agara Bio is an open bio-lab run by undergraduate students at @JohnsHopkins. It gives them the freedom to delve into their own research ideas, learn new techniques and hone existing ones. From next year, Agara will share some of their community projects on their @brieflybio portfolio page, so you can find out what they’re up to. This includes automating a phage isolation and characterisation platform on @opentrons OT2, as well as hosting JHU's 2025 iGEM team. Their shared lab protocols there too, so new lab members can easily find out how to get started. Take a look at the link below 👇

A little lab love in @brieflybio Research Portfolios

Meet Laima Šusta, Synbio PhD at @imperialcollege . Laima is just starting out. She plans to harness evolution to develop more robust bacterial gene circuits, that have less context dependence than those built with rational approaches. 🧫 Rather than only sharing her work through journals, Laima is using her @brieflybio Portfolio to share her plans and update it as she starts her research. 🧐 You can take a look at these plans, as well as some of the protocols she's considering adapting.

Doing sc-RNA sequencing? As part of his research, Nikolay Zolotarev has developed and optimised a number of protocols for nuclei isolation and RNA extraction. Check them out on his @brieflybio portfolio – they're open for the community re-use, and adapt. Link below👇

Introducing … Research Portfolios Showcase your lab work in a single place. It’s free for academics 😉 shorturl.at/GFUn4

Looking for a job in research ain’t easy. It’s scary, especially early in your career when you don’t have many publications. How do you show your skills? We added a feature to @brieflybio to help scientists do just that. Package up all the relevant lab-work in one place, your Research Portfolio. Then, simply add the link to your job application. Academics go free 😉 shorturl.at/GFUn4

Gotta extract some PBMCs? Or run a Seahorse cell metabolic analysis? @vcjdeboer lab’s Portfolio is a goldmine of protocols 🔥 Based at 🇳🇱 Wageningen University, they study the inner workings of mitochondria and how mitochondrial metabolites communicate with epigenetic machinery. Check it out here 👇app.briefly.bio/portfolio/vinc…

We have just released Research Portfolios. The place to showcase your lab work. Here’s a Portfolio by @cradlebio 🔥

Today, @brieflybio is announcing Research Portfolios. The place to showcase your best lab work. And that other lab work too, that never got it's day in the sun.