Organization attributes
Laboratory attributes
The mission of the DAMP lab is to develop biological systems using formal representations of protocols and experiments for the specify-design-build-test cycle. DAMP is an acronym for Design, Automation, Manufacturing, and Prototyping.
The DAMP lab uses the Biofoundry Integrated Instrumentation System (BIIS) to automate molecular biology protocols such as DNA assembly, PCR, DNA/RNA purification, bacterial culture assays and molecular cloning steps.
DAMP Lab North develops small to medium scale projects in constructing novel biological systems and uses Aquarium software. DAMP Lab South houses the Biological Design Center, BIIS and the Microfluidics Design and Manufacturing platform.
One of the core missions of DAMP is the produce reproducible protocols and results. Towards this goal, the DAMP lab published a video article on JoVE on titled Automated Robotic Liquid Handling Assembly of Modular DNA Devices. The visual protocol improved success rate of performing the protocol because it decreased variation and mistakes in performing experiments.