Introducing FAST – Our Flexible Ageing Screening Technology
After a full year of planning and another year of hands-on development, refinement, and optimization, we are proud to officially introduce FAST – Flexible Ageing Screening Technology. What began as a concept has now evolved into a robust, high-throughput platform that is actively shaping the way we approach ageing research in yeast.
FAST has been in continuous use for over a year, and during this time, it has proven itself to be not only functional but remarkably adaptable. We’ve built and fine-tuned workflows, established reproducible protocols, and validated the system across multiple experimental setups. The platform is now a central part of our lab infrastructure, and its development continues to accelerate.
We’ve already completed several successful screens, rearrayed and frozen strains to expand and preserve our collection, and laid a solid foundation for future experiments. FAST is delivering on its promise: enabling us to explore the biology of ageing with precision, scalability, and confidence.
Our current strategies include:
Pinning workflows tailored for high-throughput conditions
Reproducible ageing experiments with robust setups
Microscopy configurations optimized for ageing phenotypes
Cultivation formats that support long-term yeast ageing studies
Thanks to the generous support and collaboration within the yeast research community, we now have access to several valuable yeast libraries. These resources are being actively expanded and adapted to fit the needs of our platform, and we’re excited about the possibilities they unlock.
Together with the Kohler MitoLab, we are launching a new project focused on mitochondrial translation. FAST will serve as the central screening engine for this initiative, allowing us to explore mitochondrial dynamics in unprecedented detail. This collaboration marks a significant step forward in our efforts to understand how stress and ageing intersect at the molecular level.
Our analysis pipeline is also fully operational and has already been successfully applied in multiple screens. It enables us to extract meaningful insights from complex datasets and helps guide the next steps in our research. We are currently working on integrating automation into this pipeline to further increase speed and throughput.
We are incredibly proud of what FAST has become. It is the result of countless hours of planning, testing, and iteration — and of the dedication and creativity of everyone involved. But this is only the beginning. We are constantly working on and with FAST, and we have a long list of ideas we’re eager to bring to life. Some are ambitious, some are experimental, and all of them reflect our commitment to pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in ageing research.
FAST is not just a tool — it’s a platform for discovery, a catalyst for collaboration, and a reflection of our lab’s vision for the future. We can’t wait to see where it takes us next.