High-throughput fully automated microrobotic zebrafish embryo injection

Injection of foreign materials (e.g., DNA, RNAi, sperm, protein, and drug compounds) into individual cells has significant implications in genetics, transgenics, assisted reproduction, and drug discovery. This video presents a microrobotic system for fully automated zebraflsh embryo injection, which overcomes the problems inherent in manual operation, such as human fatigue and large variations in success rates due to poor reproducibility. Based on computer vision and motion control, the automated microrobotic system is capable of immobilizing a large number of zebraflsh embryos into a regular pattern within seconds and injecting 15 embryos (chorion unremoved) per minute with a success rate, survival rate, and phenotypic rate all close to 100%.