MODEL RELEASED. Drugs research. Researcher with a Robolab 9600 robot which automatically tests potential drugs found in extracts from medicinal plants. The robot can test up to 50,000 samples a week. The machine uses plastic plates which are divided up into 96 tiny test compartments. Each of these compartments holds less than 50 microlitres of chemical or plant extract. The compartments' contents are exposed to thousands of different chemicals to check their effect. The Robolab 9600 was developed by a team headed by British biologist Robert Brookes at the Glaxo Wellcome pharmaceutical company.