A new frontier of science: From the CMU Cloud Lab to an open ecosystem

Remote controlled laboratories have emerged as a new way of doing science in recent years. The centrally located, networked, automated lab equipment allows users to access a broad range of state-of-the-art instruments at their fingertips, and design and perform experiments through lines of code on their laptops without being in the lab. On one hand, this technology paints the exciting future of science, has the huge potential of revolutionizing how science and collaboration is done, leveling the playing field for researchers with less resources, and improving the reproducibility of research through limiting human errors and automating the documentation and data collection process. On the other hand, such labs have been primarily configured for industry settings in life science and chemistry, and its application in academic settings is largely an uncharted territory.  In Spring 2024, Carnegie Mellon University opened the nation’s first academic remote controlled laboratory, the CMU Cloud Lab, in partnership with Emerald Cloud Lab, a commercial, remote controlled, automated lab that has been used for commercial drug discoveries. To adopt such infrastructure in academic settings in a way that facilitates research, education, and knowledge sharing, several challenges exist. First, technical barriers exist to transform the workflow from a closed environment to openly accessible, a need that has become urgent in light of the recent open science mandates from funding agencies. Second, user education and community building need to be in place for a wider adoption and smooth transition of the technology. Furthermore, it takes time to develop and implement appropriate policy guidance and funding structure to support the technology adoption. In this presentation, we will discuss some initial work that CMU Libraries are undertaking to help address these challenges and to support users as they navigate this transformation, in collaboration with stakeholders and the campus community.