The new robot that is employed by EPA is really speeding up things at the lab for testing the toxicity of chemicals. While a person can do 10-20 testing a year, the robot is able to test 10000 chemical in a week, says Robert Kavlock, the Director of the National Center for Computation and Toxicology at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The goal of the project is to have a database of toxic and harmful chemicals. The use of the robot also eliminates the need for using animals in the experiments. Once the testing of a chemical is finished, the robot sends the results to scientists, who evaulate the outcome.  The costs are also drastically reduced, from millions of dollars, to thousands, Kavlock says.

  chemicals, laboratory, testing