AI-powered robotic labs will accelerate new treatments for deadly infections
- Video
10 April 2025
New AI-powered, robotic labs that will accelerate development of new treatments for deadly diseases are to be built in Liverpool after £10m Innovation Zone funding was agreed.
The High Containment Level 3 labs, located at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM) and supported by the Infection Innovation Consortium (iiCON), will be capable of handling a range of pathogens during development and validation of new treatments that could save lives worldwide.
The new laboratories will be fitted with state-of-the-art robotics, AI, and liquid handling systems to safely progress research and development of new vaccines, drugs and diagnostics for high-risk and deadly infectious diseases.
Speaker 1: [00:00:00] Until now, these breakthrough technologies haven’t been adopted by vaccine and therapeutics manufacturers because they haven’t been able to be assay ready and industry ready. But this facility will allow us for the first time to really scale up in these, uh, disruptive technologies.
Speaker 2: The innovation zone is a huge opportunity for ICON and LSTM.
To capitalize on the r and d activity that we’ve already got going in Human organoids. This is a way that we can actually work with companies to bring new infectious disease products through to market much more quickly. And in turn, it will actually help create hundreds of jobs in the Liverpool City region.
Speaker 1: This will be a beacon for industry to allow them to do that r and d work that really, um, uh, de-risks projects, ensuring that the. Region [00:01:00] remains a leader in vaccine and therapeutic development for infectious diseases.