Fig. 1

Concept of the Autonomous Lab (ANL). (A) Computer-generated image and (B) photograph with the ANL layout drawing. The ANL is composed of a transfer robot, plate hotels, microplate reader, centrifuge, incubator, liquid handler, and LC-MS/MS system. The transfer robot can move the side of the instruments and transfer microplates there. Samples in the plates are treated (e.g., incubation for cell cultivation and enzymatic reactions, centrifugation, removing culture media, and adding solvents) and measured (e.g., measurements of optical density, absorption and fluorescence, and qualitative/quantitative analysis of intra- or extracellular metabolites) on the instruments. These instruments can be used in any combination and are controlled under the automation system according to a prepared protocol. The ANL learns from experimental data that are obtained automatically by the ANL, and then suggests optimized experimental conditions to researchers. The concept and demonstration of ANL are shown in Supplementary movies 1 and 2, respectively.