High-throughput DNA Assembly and Cloning
High-throughput DNA Assembly and Cloning
.png){kind=small}
Example Projects
MLSC / BioSense8
Winter 2025 - Present
The MySensing POC monitoring system developed by Biosens8 seeks to deliver instant hormone readouts, offering tremendous value to IVF patients and clinics. In collaboration with DAMP Lab, Biosens8 is validating the MySensing progesterone biosensor on whole blood samples from non-pregnant volunteers. Portions of each sample are analyzed at the DAMP CLIA Lab using the Abbott Alinity instruments to produce gold-standard, CLIA-approved reference results, while Biosens8 will test the same samples with the MySensing device to assess accuracy and performance. The Abbott Instruments were purchased with a grant from the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center Women’s Health Collaboration Program. Use of these instruments is open to commercial and academic users on a fee for service basis.
Scientific Director
Catherine Klapperich
Unlike commercial or hospital laboratories—which are difficult for early-stage researchers to access•the DAMP Lab offers a uniquely accessible, research-focused clinical testing environment. Our CLIA-certified infrastructure can handle research samples at scale, provide cloud-based submission and reporting, and securely store data in our SciSure Laboratory Information Management System. This capability enables early assay developers like Biosens8 to iterate rapidly and generate validated, gold-standard data that would otherwise be inaccessible.
Align Foundation Collaboration
Fall 2023 - Present
The Align Foundation’s Growth-based Quantitative Sequencing (GROQ-Seq) platform is a global initiative to generate large-scale, reproducible sequence-to-function datasets for proteins. The platform links protein activity to cellular growth, allowing millions of protein variants to be tested in parallel for only a few cents per sequence. By producing open, machine-learning-ready data, GROQ-Seq aims to accelerate predictive modeling of biological function across diverse protein families.
As a collaborator, the DAMP Lab has been onboarding the transcription-factor (TF) assay to validate cross-site reproducibility and automate large-scale data collection. This partnership supports a shared mission to create open, reproducible, and scalable biological data, driving the next generation of predictive biology and functional genomics.
Co-Founder:
Erika DeBenedictis
Co-Founder, Head of Science:
Peter Kelly
.png)
Automated Screening of Nucleic Acid Devices
Spring 2023
The automation of PCR, Gibson assembly, transformation, and miniprep executed by Hamilton robots will drastically reduce hands-on time and increase throughput of DNA samples. PhD students in Dr. Alexander Green’s lab will use these cloned samples to survey the space of potential RNA devices, which can provide a framework for predicting the optimal region of a transcript for diagnostic targeting.
High-throughput Sequencing for Microbiome Research
Spring 2023
Partnering with the BU Microbiome Initiative, the pilot project led by Dr. Daniel Segre will focus on automating the detailed characterization of hundreds of microbiome samples from around the world using Next Generation Sequencing capabilities. DAMP lab’s robots will help prepare sequencing libraries in a high-throughput fashion to significantly reduce time at the bench as well as costs, ultimately enabling BU researchers to ask questions currently beyond reach in the field.
Determining the microbial carrying capacity of Arabidopsis thaliana
Spring 2023
This project aims to resolve the quantitative relationship between plants and bacteria by leveraging the high-throughput processing capacity of the DAMP Lab. Using DNA isolation and qPCR, The Larkin Lab seeks to understand how many microbes a plant can support and how microbial engineering efforts for this quantitative relationship. If successful, this collaborative effort between the Larkin and DAMP labs will produce novel insights to the field of plant-microbial interactions and establish a robust and reliable pipeline that will expedite the rate at which these contributions occur.
Systems Cytomics: High-throughput Platform for Analysis of Adaptive Immune Responses
Spring 2023
For this pilot project, the DAMP lab and Dr. Adriana Tomic’s lab aim to establish a high-throughput robotic platform combined with AI to develop a novel assay to interrogate adaptive immune cells and their properties, including polyfunctionality, cross-reactivity, TCR clonality, and specificity. This 'Systems Cytomics’ assay will enable the evaluation of the quantitative and qualitative aspects of adaptive immune cells in protective immunity that can be applied to many different diseases and immunotherapies, and will speed up the discovery of vaccine candidates.
High-throughput Hydrogel Production
Spring 2023
For this pilot project, the DAMP lab’s liquid handlers will be put to use, developing a high throughput method for preparing hydrogels with tunable biophysical properties for tissue engineering applications. Researchers in Dr. Joyce Wong’s lab will be able to design varying multi-well plates to investigate cell-material interactions in order to probe different disease states across different cell types as well as hydrogel compositions, ultimately informing downstream therapeutic applications.
Automated iPSC-cardiomyocytes Culture and Differentiation Workflow
Spring 2023
In collaboration with the BU CELL-MET Engineering Research Center, the overall goal for this pilot project is to develop an automation platform to provide a standardized and high-throughput workflow for the culturing and differentiation of iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes. This workflow will save valuable time and resources for researchers in Dr. Christopher Chen’s lab as well as the researchers in the CELL-MET Engineering Research Center, and allow scientists to focus on ideas rather than repetitive lab protocols.
PI:
Alexander Green, PhD
Presenter:
James Robson
PI:
Daniel Segrè, PhD
Presenter:
Daniel Segrè, PhD
PI:
Joseph Larkin, PhD
Presenter:
Michael Zulch
PI:
Adriana Tomic, PhD
Presenter:
Adriana Tomic, PhD
PI:
Joyce Wong, PhD
Presenter:
Isabella Claure
PI:
