When Rebecca Doerge became dean of Carnegie Mellon University’s College of Science in August 2016, the statistician was handed a big challenge: elevate the reputation of the College of Science to the same level of recognition as the university’s engineering and computer science departments.
Doerge responded to the challenge with somewhat of a gamble, deciding to invest $40 million to build the world’s first university cloud lab. In the new field of “life science as a service,” the comprehensive laboratory in the cloud can be accessed and controlled remotely by computer interface, allowing students and researchers to conduct multiple experiments at once without setting foot in an actual laboratory. Proof of concept results have already demonstrated that three years of research can be accurately reproduced in just two weeks with this technology.
While remote lab work may have seemed like an odd choice in 2016, it managed to become the norm in early 2020 when the pandemic hit and the U.S. found itself under stay-at-home orders. So, did Doerge have a crystal ball or was she just ahead of her time investing in a cloud-based lab architecture? Before the lab, which is designed by Emerald Cloud Lab (ECL), officially launches in the fall of this year, Laboratory Equipment’s Michelle Taylor spoke with Doerge about the lab and what we can expect to see from Carnegie Mellon University’s College of Science in the near future.
Q: How did you come to decide that building the world's first cloud lab in an academic setting was the right move for the future?
A: One of the reasons I chose to come to Carnegie Mellon was because of its tradition of interdisciplinarity. I’m a statistician and geneticist, and I appreciated how the university brought together diverse disciplines to answer important questions. One of the areas in which we do this best is bringing artificial intelligence, machine learning and data science approaches to science. When I met Brian Frezza and DJ Kleinbaum—Emerald Cloud Lab’s co-founders and Carnegie Mellon alumni—and learned about their cloud lab concept, I knew that Carnegie Mellon was the perfect home for the world’s first cloud lab at a university.
Q: How has your perspective/viewpoint of the Cloud Lab changed from pre-pandemic (prior to March 2020) to now?
A: The COVID-19 pandemic reinforced how important cloud labs will be to the future of science. No one anticipated a global pandemic, but our relationship with ECL helped us to weather the pandemic better than most. We were able to use ECL’s platform and facilities to offer a laboratory class to students who were studying remotely, giving them a laboratory experience they wouldn’t have been able to have otherwise. Early in the pandemic, we had to pause in-person research. Our faculty who were working with ECL could continue those experiments. No one can predict what the future holds but having the resources and know-how to do remote research with a cloud lab will undoubtedly be an asset for current and future scientists.
Q: How does the Cloud Lab democratize science for researchers and students?
A: The Carnegie Mellon University Cloud Lab will democratize science for our faculty, staff and student researchers by providing increased access to the best research resources and creating sharable datasets. Ideas will no longer be limited by the availability of equipment. We also hope to be able to open the CMU Cloud Lab to the community, especially schools and life sciences startups.
Q: What are some of the first experiments you hope to run in the Cloud Lab come fall 2022, and how are CMU researchers and students preparing to do this?
A: Some of the initial experiments researchers will perform will build on work they are currently doing at the ECL facility in San Francisco. This includes experiments aimed at studying the role specific chemicals play in human cells to better understand disease; creating DNA/RNA and DNA-polymer hybrids for the development and delivery of therapies; and using AI and machine learning to accelerate drug and materials discovery. During construction we’re conducting training sessions with ECL to introduce new investigators to the cloud lab. Future experiments will likely focus on areas including materials science, polymer development and energy creation and storage.
Q: The CMU Cloud Lab is only one piece of the university's decade-long “future of science initiative” that seeks to accelerate the university's leadership in scientific discovery. Can you talk about a few other components of the initiative and how they fall into the overall plan?
A: Carnegie Mellon’s future of science initiative will bring together the foundational sciences with artificial intelligence, machine learning, engineering, data science and human ingenuity to solve real-world problems. The Carnegie Mellon Cloud Lab is a key part of this. The other two components are a new science futures building and a focus on the research of the future. The science futures building will be a modern new home for science at Carnegie Mellon. It is being designed and built with flexibility in mind, allowing labs to be configured and reconfigured to encourage collaboration and to quickly mobilize to answer emerging problems. Classrooms, teaching labs and other spaces will be created with the intention of inspiring students and preparing them to become future scientists and leaders. For the research of the future, we will be supporting research, faculty and students working in key areas of science that will be accelerated through the application of AI and data science. This includes research in astrophysics, health sciences, materials science, the mathematical foundations of AI, neuroscience and quantum information, among other areas.
Photo credit: Emerald Cloud Lab. Headshot credit: Carnegie Mellon University