Question: How would someone even start on this and what does the robot actually do?

Enda O'Connell answered on 16 Nov 2012:

Hi sinr1

I only got started on cancer research recently, because I am responsible for Janus the robot, which is a very useful tool for carrying out lots of cancer drug discovery experiments very quickly, as well as other type of experiments. I actually studied Microbiology for my PhD in college (UCD) where I looked at bacteria that caused pneumonia in young horses and people with weak immune systems.

My job in NUI Galway involves working with different research groups who are interested in lots of different topics, cancer, stem cells, biomaterials, multiple sclerosis, etc. and either training the researchers to use different instruments to carry out their experiments, or working more closely on the projects where Janus is involved.

Janus is a high throughput robot, which means that she can be used to carry out lots of experiments as fast, if not faster, than we could do them by hand. For example, we can get Janus to add thousands of different drugs to different samples of breast cancer cells at the same time, to see which of them is best at killing cancer cells. If we were to do this by hand it would take an awfully long time, and as we always need to repeat this type of experiment to be sure it has worked properly, it would take even longer! This way we have a much better chance of finding a cure than if we had to look at the drugs one by one.

Also, sometimes our experiments can take hours or even days to finish, because of all of the different steps involved and the time it takes for reactions or incubations to occur. By using Janus to carry out these type of lengthy experiments, it allows me and other scientists to go back to the lab and do other kinds of research. Scientists have to be good at multitasking, and Janus is like having your own assistant to help you with your work!