Scientific Steal: Robot from eBay

Securing equipment at a reduced rate is a coup for any university investigator who is mindful of his or her budget, but finding a relatively new research robot on eBay at a 97 percent discount is the rare kind of luck reserved for lottery winners—and for Charles Luetje, Ph.D., professor and vice chairman of molecular and cellular pharmacology and director of the Neuroscience Graduate Program.

It began as a joke. A colleague of Luetje’s suggested he turn to eBay to look for parts to maintain the OpusXpress, a five-year-old electrophysiology robot currently used in his lab to measure the function of receptors and ion channels.

Having only used the site once before to purchase a winter coat, Luetje was surprised to find an OpusXpress on eBay. The starting bid for the robot, which retails for about $250,000, was $7,000. Luetje initiated the bidding process, and following one half-hearted counter offer, he won the auction with a bid of $7,200.

“I couldn’t believe the price,” says Luetje. “Even if it didn’t work, we could use it for replacement parts.”

The robot’s manufacturer, who was aware of the eBay sale, became a helpful resource for answering Luetje’s questions about the setup of the equipment. Within two weeks, the robot was shipped from the seller, a company that purchases and resells used biotech equipment, and arrived at the Miller School.

“Scheduling time on the Opus has always been a bottleneck for researchers,” says Luetje, noting that the new machine has doubled the lab’s productivity.