High Throughput Screening (HTS) is a drug-discovery process widely used in the pharmaceutical industry. It leverages specialized automation and microfluidic devices to quickly and economically assay the biological or biochemical activity of a large collection of drug-like compounds. It is a useful for discovering ligands for receptors, enzymes, ion-channels or other pharmacological targets, or pharmacologically profiling a cellular or biochemical pathway of interest. Typically, HTS assays are performed in “automation-friendly” microtiter plates of 96, 384 or 1536 well format. Moreover, the use of robotics allows us to rapidly produce consistent, high quality data while also generating less waste since they smaller amounts of materials are used.
The robotics laboratory occupies 1452 ft2 and is shared between two Kalypsys-GNF robotic platforms: HTS and Compound Management. The HTS system is comprised of the components below:
Overview of UF Scripps HTS Robotics Platform; [A] Stäubli Robotic Arm, [B] Kalypsys-GNF Compound Transfer Station, [C] Kalypsys-GNF Washer/Dispenser, [D] PerkinElmer ViewLux CCD Imager, [E] Molecular Devices FLIPRTETRA, [F] Thermo Cellomics CellInsight High-Content Reader, [G] Kalypsys-GNF Microplate Incubator, [H] Joaun Robotics Microplate Centrifuge, [I] PerkinElmer EnVision Multilabel Reader