Discover What Your Future Lab Will Look Like at SmartLAB 2017

One of the highlights of LABVOLUTION with BIOTECHNICA is smartLAB, the intelligent laboratory of the future. From 16 to 18 May the fully functional model laboratory will form the heart of Europe’s flagship fair for innovative lab equipment and laboratory workflow optimization. An exciting non-stop program will run on all three days of the trade fair – including live use cases, presentations and opportunities to directly experience and explore smartLAB.

At its second staging, this special display on the laboratory of the future will show the benefits of flexible digital integration, the use of automation and robotics, integrated functional surfaces and the virtues of adopting a modular approach. To make this happen, for several months a total of 14 partners from industry and science have been busy working out the technical details. For the entire duration of the show, smartLAB will be the venue for a moderated program featuring presentations from the participating companies and institutions.

By demonstrating three live use cases, smartLAB shows what everyday laboratory work 4.0 could look like in practice. On every day of the trade fair, visitors can experience a bioreactor inoculation from the field of biotechnology in the morning, phosphate analysis from the field of environmental engineering at midday, and an examination of popcorn using PCR analysis of GMO maize from the field of food technology on the first and second afternoons of the show.

Further highlights are lined up for Wednesday afternoon, starting at 3:45 p.m. with a panel discussion on digital interconnectivity. The panel will include Dr. Simon Bungers, CEO of labfolder, Martin Nehls, Member of the Executive Board at iTiZZiMO, Axel Wechsler, Head of the Laboratory IT Group at Fraunhofer IPA, Thomas Schink, Manager of Embedded Computing at Sartorius Lab Instruments GmbH & Co.KG, and Dr. Jan-Gerd Frerichs, Director of Information Integration at Eppendorf AG. This will be followed at 4:15 p.m. by a speech from Dr. Andreas Gruchow, Member of the Managing Board at Deutsche Messe, welcoming guests to the official smartLAB reception and a keynote speech from Dr. Andreas Hochberger, Vice President of Portfolio Management Marketing at Eppendorf AG. As a special treat for the guests, the program will include another live use case: beer color determination. The trade fair day at smartLAB will end with a get-together starting at 5 p.m.

On every day of the event there will be frequent time slots when trade visitors can explore smartLAB for themselves. The “hands on” part of the program lets visitors get up close to the devices and modules.

In parallel with the conference program, the smartLAB partners will have their own workstations around the actual lab in order to introduce themselves individually to interested visitors. Among the companies and institutes contributing to smartLAB are Eppendorf AG, the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation (IPA), Herr M, iTiZZiMO, Köttermann, labfolder, Lorenscheit, LUPYLED, PreSens, Sartorius, Schmidt + Haensch, Zühlke Engineering, Deutsche Messe and, assuming the leading role, the Institute of Technical Chemistry at Leibniz University Hannover. smartLAB 2017 is sponsored by the German state of Lower Saxony’s Ministry for Education and Culture as well at the Ministry for Economic Affairs, Labor and Transport.