In most DOE software, the typical approach involves first defining the factors and the levels at which you wish to investigate them. Once the DOE design is calculated, you then plan your experiment and determine how the factors you defined relate to specific steps in your experimental process.
In Synthace, we take a different approach. We encourage you to start by defining your experimental protocol, using the context of your experiment to identify which parameters within your protocol should be treated as factors for the DOE design. This approach allows you to leverage the already-defined experimental context in your protocol. For example, a factor might be related to a specific liquid component and its concentrations when added to a mixture, or it could be the volume of your reaction. Synthace also assists you in determining the types of factors, such as whether they are continuous (e.g., liquid component concentration) or categorical (e.g., buffer type for dilution).
Given the benefits of starting from your experiment context, in Synthace, you begin by marking up the element parameters in your workflow to which you want to apply DOE factors. Two elements, Make Mixtures and Mix Onto, support DOE factor markup. To learn more about this feature, you can refer to the documentation here.
Within the elements mentioned, you have the option to mark up specific parameters as DOE factors in Synthace. Here are the parameters that can be marked up:
Mixture Compositions: By marking up this parameter, you can investigate different liquid compounds and their concentrations as DOE factors in your mixture.
Diluent To Use: Marking up this parameter allows you to explore different diluents in your mixtures as a factor when creating mixtures up to the final target volumes.
Final Target Volume: This parameter can be marked up if you want to investigate the final volume of your mixtures as a factor. This becomes particularly useful when you are interested in understanding how volume impacts the behavior of your biological system, such as when exploring miniaturization effects.
To learn how to mark up the element parameters in your workflow, click here.
To learn about and how to define different factors in Synthace, click here.