CEO Daniel Leach is leveraging his extensive knowledge of laboratory automation systems, with an emphasis on automated liquid handling robots, to open up new possibilities within existing systems for his customers with his company Optimize Laboratory Consultants LLC.
Much of our existing laboratory automation equipment is unable to meet the new challenges of the future. Due to this, many times, the only alternative is to purchase new and expensive equipment. Even then, there is not always a readily available off-the-shelf solution, which adds to the problem.
Introducing Optimize Laboratory Consultants (OLC)
Optimize Laboratory Consultants (OLC) helps fill that particular niche within the laboratory automation space. When a liquid handling robot’s native capabilities don’t serve the need, they provide custom solutions. When required, they even extend those capabilities beyond what the systems were designed for. The CEO of Optimize Laboratory Consultants is Daniel Leach, who has extensive knowledge of liquid handling robots.
Before Daniel struck out on his own, he worked in the industry for many years. In our opinion, the Te-Chrom Wizard application is a solution he developed during that time to be valued above all. The Wizard enables chromatography with robo-columns and Tecan’s Te-Chrom staging platform. The Wizard enabled Te-Chrom to be used directly, rather than manually writing a lengthy EVOware script. As a result, laboratory scientists with little automation experience (like us) used the Te-Chrom platform.
But now Daniel has taken his skills to the open market, and he sat down with us for an interview.
 | Optimize.labconsultants@gmail.com Telephone: 267-421-9291 104 Brunswick Place, Lansdale, PA 19446 LinkedIn Page |
The Man…The Company
Rave Robot (RR): Hi, Daniel. Could you please tell us about yourself. What’s your current position or title?
Daniel Leach (DL): CEO of Optimize. Laboratory Consultants LLC.
RR: How long have you been in this position?
DL: Three Years.
DL: I provide consultative services and support to a wide variety of scientific disciplines – focusing on analytical technology and laboratory automation to drive improvements in throughput, quality and cost effectiveness in drug development and testing workflows.
RR: Tell us about Optimize Laboratory Consultants. What does your company do?
DL: Optimize. Laboratory Consultants offers a wide variety of development and support services in the laboratory automation market place. With experiences with Tecan, Hamilton, Beckman, Perkin Elmer platforms; plus the track record to take an automated workflow, and extend the performance to improve better liquid handling, improve throughput for faster results, reduce consumables and process costs with improvements in process quality and traceability. Typical projects include workflow analysis, process schedule design, automation configuration design, data interface tools, “large-data” tools for metrics analysis, assay troubleshooting and many more.
RR: What are the projects that your company are working on that you can discuss with a brief overview?
DL: Automated Chromatography – Taking an established automated solution for HTPD and enhancing the functions, features to “optimize” the process and allow for a wider degree of experimental parameters and analytical data.
Genomics Workflows – Designing workflows for gDNA extraction. Designing workflows for cfDNA isolation/extraction. NGS process design. NGS assay design.
Liquid Handling Optimization – Designing, testing & documenting pipetting technique to achieve < 1% accuracy and precision for 2 µL, 5 µL & 10 µL dispense. Building tools to automatically “update liquid class” based on calibration data.
Automated Immunoassay – Implementing commercial immunoassays in a high throughput laboratory. Assay validation, throughput analysis & workflow adjustments to achieve highest throughput.
RR: We want to understand how and why you ended up here working in the automation field and starting OLC. What led you to do this? What were you doing before you came here?
DL: My first employment out of university was a bench scientist performing a wide range of in vitro assays. These assays were repetitive, needing to be completed with accuracy and precision, but all manually processed. A few months into this role, the company acquired a piece of automation – a Packard Multiprobe – one of the early products to offer automated pipetting. After a few hours playing with the software, I was hooked and over the following year, assays were transferred from bench/manual to a more automated approach.
I started my own LLC due to market feedback. I had so many ex-customers reaching out to me asking for my support, it was a no-brainer!
Where It All Began
RR: Now if we can, we’d like to go way back for a little while. Where did you grow up? Did you go to college? Where did you go, and what was that like?
DL: I grew up in England, in a small town in the Cotswolds. I studied biochemistry & molecular biology at University in Cardiff, Wales.
RR: Did you have any key mentors or people who deeply influenced your career choice? If so, what did they do that had an impact on you?
DL: I have been extremely blessed in my career to be able to diversify my skill set, and follow new directions as I have wanted. This starts at my first employment when I had an idea…concept for an “automated laboratory solution” and was given the time and opportunity to invest in the concept.
In my other employments, the commercial nature of the business gave greater exposure to a wider market area and geographical area, but this also increased the size of the audience.
At each position I have held, the people I have reported to have always been open to ideas, listened attentively and assisted in allowing me to follow the idea – to these people, I say thank you.
DL: I don’t know of a single life-changing experience – I have always been someone who doesn’t look at the moment, but tries to look ahead and wants to make a better path in the direction you want to take.
Important Skill Sets
RR: What skills have you learned or picked up that you believe best helped you in your business and career?
DL: Over the past 20 years, the world as a whole and the scientific community have become more reliant on “integration”. People now expect more to happen from less – think of an iPhone – simply making a keystroke leads to the execution of multiple actions. In the laboratory, the same can be said for instrument usage – pressing 1 button/key does a task.
The mindset has changed, and I have watched this happen and tried to align software capabilities and software skill sets to achieve the “optimize” process design that people now desire.
Aside from software design skills, some of the fundamental skills – and these aren’t meant to be clichés – involves understanding the processes in a laboratory to enable you to discuss at the scientific level with a scientist, listening and taking notes of each discussion, feeling comfortable “challenging” the scientist with ideas, options or feedback, and, probably the most important, is being organized in everything you do. Juggling multiple projects, multiple clients and overlapping timelines is not easy.
RR: Are there any skills or advice you would give or recommend to others moving into this field? What skills do you wish you had learned or learned sooner?
DL: The scientific community is moving at a significant rate, in terms of technology and breadth of application. Keeping abreast of new developments, thinking further ahead is key to be dynamic in any workplace.
I have also found that building a network of contacts – people with diverse skill sets that compliment what you can perform – can assist in allowing you to offer more to clients. I’ve fallen back, many times, on the approach of “it isn’t what you know, it’s knowing who to ask that will know more”
Moving Forward into the Future
DL: My motivations exist from 20 year’s experience in laboratories in bringing ideas and concepts to fruition – taking a pencil and paper idea, from sketch to drawing, from schematic to actual workflow, from a requirements list of functions to an operating manual of delivered capabilities. I have always been committed to a “customer-first” approach – acting as a collaborative partner to allow the scientists to focus on the science, and I focus on the design, development, testing & implementation.
RR: In the future, where do you see the laboratory automation industry moving into?
DL: I have multiple answers to this question. Different markets need different solutions – the market will diversify for simplistic solutions to open-source based platforms allowing for plug & play with a range of devices…functions.
At the top end of the market, for the multi-million dollar solutions, where laboratories want to create a “one-stop” platform to automate their entire workflow, which could include devices never designed with automation in mind, the market will continue along the current path of a small number of established vendors continuing to build one-off solutions based on a client scope document.
One point to “advise the market” and to streamline development in the future, is to incorporate designs for hardware and software that make the product “automation compatible” – for any product, someone will want to get it automated.
RR: What does the future hold for you and OLC?
DL: I have a great pipeline of projects and collaborations. But number one on my list is to complete an Optimize website.
DL: If you are serious about branching out to start a business, my advice would be to reach out to other consultants and expand your network. It can seem daunting to “go solo” but the rewards can outweigh the risks.
