(1289-B) From Paper to Assay: a Case-Study on Adapting, Developing, and Troubleshooting an Enzymatic Assay for High-Throughput Screening.
Monday, February 5, 2024
2:00 PM – 3:00 PM EST
Location: Exhibit Halls AB
Abstract: The ability to develop a high-throughput screening (HTS) enzymatic assay is an essential part to drug discovery as this can enhance the probability of finding a potential hit from a large molecular library. The challenge is developing an assay that is highly robust, reproducible, and cost effective over the duration of the program, which can last several years. NuChem Sciences, a Sygnature Discovery business, is a contract research organisation (CRO) based in the greater Montreal area that specialises in drug discovery and chemical development. The NuChem Biology team was tasked with adapting and further developing a published enzymatic assay to enable a higher-throughput screening of inhibitors. While the original assay was run in a 96-well format, we were asked to scale the assay to a 384-well format. NuChem has invested into automation capabilities to further enhance our drug discovery processes. This presentation will highlight the changes that were made to the original assay to better adopt it for high-throughput screening using the Hamilton STARlet liquid handling robot showcasing our successes and lessons learned towards adopting the original 96-well manual assay to a 384-well automated assay.