(1266-C) Development of a Flexible Platform for the Preparation of Assay-Ready Plates in Drug Hit-to-Lead Processes

Abstract: The integration of automation and IT technology has become increasingly important in improving efficiency across various stages of drug discovery. During the hit to lead optimization phase, Design-Make-Test-Analyze (DMTA) cycle needs to be expedited and streamlined.
The DMTA cycle requires the preparation of Assay-Ready Plate (ARP) with varying conditions, such as compound concentrations, number of samples, and assay plate layout to conduct dose-response biochemical and chemical assays.
We have been using the compound liquid-handling automation system, which consists of both the laboratory automation instruments and scheduling software, not only dispense compound solutions in the range up to 10^7 times dilutions in assay plates, but also handle batch sizes from a single to over thousands of compounds. However, it lacks the flexibility to adjust the varying conditions in each assays.
To address the flexibility issue, we have developed a new in-house application using Django, a Python-based framework, and integrated it with the automation system. This web application receives ARP requests from researchers, and generates files for the preparation of ARPs by integrating information of dispensing details such as plate/well locations, volumes, and the number of plates. The automation system then uses the files to prepare the ARPs.
Our new platform fully automates the preparation of ARP, handling tasks such as generating dispensing files, diluting stock compound solutions, and dispensing into destination plates as per researchers-defined conditions. The platform is designed to obtain ARPs by selecting the pre-defined plate format and entering the compound list on the web application in a user-friendly manner. In addition, its operation is quite simple with two steps, (i) setting the stock compound source plates and destination assay plates on the automation system and then (ii) initiate the operation program. In conclusion, we developed the fully automated ARP system by integration of automation and IT technology to make drug discovery research more efficient.