MOSMAGE is a fully modular, open-source automated genome engineering hardware platform designed to demolish the financial barriers restricting metabolic engineering innovation. By integrating automated liquid handling, thermal control, electroporation, fluidics, and real-time culture monitoring into an automated and scalable system, OSAGE transforms genome engineering from a slow, manual, and expensive process into an accessible, automated workflow.
The hardware does not simply replicate existing systems at lower cost, it reimagines accessibility through modularity, reconfigurability, and open-source design. By reducing the cost of scientific ambition, MOSMAGE empowers students, startups, and small laboratories to accelerate innovation in the bioeconomy and contribute meaningfully to sustainable manufacturing and global health solutions.

The modular open source automated genome engineering (MOSAGE ) hardware platform is a modular, low-cost system designed to automate multiplex genome engineering workflows traditionally limited to well funded laboratories. Built using commercially available, consumer-grade components and custom fabricated modules, MOSAGE delivers high-end automated genome engineering capabilities at a fraction of the cost of proprietary systems.
At its core, the platform transforms the technically demanding process of strain engineering into a scalable, configurable hardware ecosystem. Rather than reinventing genome engineering chemistry, MOSMAGE focuses on engineering accessibility: reducing financial, technical, and operational barriers through intelligent hardware design.
The MOSMAGE system is built around a modular hardware framework, allowing users to assemble only the components required for their workflow. Modules can be added, removed, or upgraded without replacing the entire system. This enables incremental scaling from a minimal low-cost setup to a high-throughput production environment.
Key hardware modules include
Automated Liquid Handling Module
Arduino controlled pumps and actuators enable accurate reagent dispensing and multiplex oligonucleotide delivery. This module replaces expensive commercial liquid-handling robots with a customizable, open-source alternative.
Thermal Control Module
Integrated heating and cooling elements provide tight temperature regulation for recombineering cycles, incubation steps, and reaction optimization.
Transformation Module
A programmable electroporation unit
supports automated high-efficiency transformations without manual intervention.
Spectrometer
spectrophotometry systems and environmental monitoring components allow real-time feedback on culture growth and metabolic activity.
Fluidics and Pumping System
Tubing and modular pump systems enable automated cycling between media, reagents, and waste, supporting multiplex automated genome engineering workflows.
Each module is validated against laboratory standards to ensure precision, repeatability, and reliability before integration into the end-to-end automated strain engineering workflow.
The OSAGE hardware platform is intentionally designed around four core principles: openness, affordability, flexibility, and scalability. As an open-source system, it provides complete documentation, schematics, and parts lists, ensuring users retain full control over maintenance, modification, and optimization without dependence on proprietary vendors. It is cost-optimized through the use of commercially available, consumer-grade components rather than expensive industrial robotics, dramatically lowering the barrier to entry. The system is reconfigurable, allowing users to adjust experimental setups quickly without specialized engineering expertise, and scalable, enabling multiple units to operate within a standard laboratory footprint, each configured for different genome engineering applications. This modular architecture empowers laboratories to run parallel experiments, rapidly iterate strain designs, expand automation capacity as funding increases, and avoid vendor lock-in while maintaining long-term operational flexibility.
By dramatically lowering the cost of automated genome engineering hardware, MOMSAGE directly addresses the structural bottleneck in synthetic biology innovation: access to equipment.
Current automated genome engineering systems are prohibitively expensive and technically exclusive. OSAGE removes this constraint by providing affordable entry into automated multiplex editing, reduced time from strain design to validation, hardware ownership instead of rental dependency and independence from proprietary service providers. This hardware democratizes the tools needed to engineer microbes for applications such as microbial production of medicines, biodegradable plastics, carbon-neutral fuels, sustainable cosmetic ingredients and industrial metabolites.