Drug Discovery Automation - Chemistry Automation & Compound Management Agenda

Registration

Managing a Collection of Stereochemically Diverse Libraries
John McGrath, Group Leader, Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, United States of America

The Impact of Rapid, Automated Analysis of HTS Library Sample Quality
Peter Hodder, Senior Director, Scripps Florida, United States of America

Compound managers are challenged with the timely delivery of cherry-picked samples to their customers, while assuring that the delivered samples are of high quality. Additional effort is associated with monitoring the quality of samples contained in multiple copies of screening libraries themselves. This presentation will focus on the impact of the “Plate Auditor” platform on Scripps’ compound management and HTS operations. The Plate Auditor simultaneously measures sample volume, color and the presence of precipitate in plate-based samples. The impact of this instrument on Scripps’ QA/QC of cherry-picked samples will be presented, as well as the results of a comprehensive audit of ~1 million samples from Scripps’ screening libraries.

Coffee Break & Networking in Exhibition Hall

Integration of Parallel Synthesis, Compound Management and Screening in Support to the Italian National Chemical Collection Center
Alberto Bresciani, Head of Screening Technologies, IRBM Science Park SpA, Italy

The interconnection between library synthesis, quality control, assay design and target focus is commonly under-evaluated in HTS. This presentation will show how a flexible "compound to assay" approach can drive the success of HTS in a public-private enterprise.

Challenges of an Open Access Screening Platform in Academia
Edgar Specker, Head of Compound Management, Medicinal Chemistry Group, Leibniz Institute of Molecular Pharmacology, Germany

The lecture will describe the common workflow at the Screening Unit and the integration of the compound management system at our platform. It will give insights which show differences between an academic platform and an industrial set up exist. Additionally, our approach to collect compounds from academia will be discussed.

Technology Spotlight:
Electric News for the Future of Plate Sealing
Russell Wheatcroft, Commercial Director, Source BioScience

Lunch & Networking in Exhibition Hall

Poster Viewing Session

How to Access Screening Libraries and HTS Outside the Pharma World
Carsten Claussen, CEO, European ScreeningPort, Germany

What are the right strategies to build up compound collections outside the safe-guarded Pharma collections to generate “starting points” and “tool compounds”. Besides the scale, design, quality of the collection the uniqueness, the operation, the follow up, IP and the budgets have to be addressed.

Coffee Break & Networking in Exhibition Hall

ACCESS: An Academic Chemical Screening Platform for Switzerland
Gerardo Turcatti, Director, Ecole Polytechnique Federale De Lausanne, Switzerland

The BSF at the EPFL is currently being developed to become a country-wide platform hosting the Swiss chemical collection with up to 200’000 compounds. Infrastructure implementations, procedures and the global strategy for compound acquisition, management and analytical characterization will be described.

Establishment of the Max Planck Compound Management and Screening Facility
Sonja Sievers, Head of COMAS, Max Planck Institute of Molecular Physiology, Germany

The COMAS infrastructure provides efficient substance storage, screening and data management for high-throughput screening projects within the Max Planck Society. Beyond basic research, COMAS will greatly facilitate translation of scientific know-how of the Max Planck Society into novel medical applications.

Drinks Reception

The Utility of Enabling Chemistry Technology for the Acceleration of Drug Discovery
Stevan Djuric, Senior Director, Discovery Chemistry and Technology, AbbVie, United States of America

The talk will highlight compound library production using a fully automated segmented flow reactor. In addition, automated systems for synthesis with photochemistry and hydrogenation will be highlighted.

Coffee Break & Networking in Exhibition Hall

The Use of Acoustic Technology for Non-DMSO, Drug Discovery Application
Mark Wigglesworth, Manger, GlaxoSmithKline, United Kingdom

This presentation will introduce the technology of Labcytes’ Echo-OMICS platform and some of the ways this platform is being utilized within GlaxoSmithKline. Data will be presented to demonstrate the use of this system to support non-DMSO sample handling. This will include, the dispense of antibodies for Meso-Scale Discovery (MSD) plate production within the assay development for MSD assays and by replicating data from established MSD assays at GSK. Additionally the application of this technology to reduce the volumes of biological reagents needed in crystallography studies will be discussed.

ESPRIT: High Throughput Screening for Soluble Expression Constructs of Difficult-to-express Proteins.
Darren Hart, Team Leader/Director, European Molecular Biology Laboratory, France

The ESPRIT technology uses picking & arraying robots to identify rare soluble expression constructs from random libraries of 28,000 size-selected fragments of a single target gene. The resulting purifiable proteins can be used in structural biology and for immunisation studies.

Lunch & Networking in Exhibition Hall

Poster Viewing Session

Sample Management and HTS: Convergent Platforms and Universal Solutions to Simplify the Integration Challenge
Chris Walsh, Manager Sample Management, Brooks Life Science Systems , United Kingdom

New developments in standardized systems and modular, commercial off the shelf solutions, to simplify the software integration challenge within Sample Management and HTS.

Compound Management Requirements to Support High Throughput Approaches to in vitro Assay Validation
Luis Saavedra, Researcher, European Commission, Italy

The Institute for Health and Consumer Protection (IHCP) hosts the European Union Reference Laboratory for Alternative Methods to Animal Testing (EURL-ECVAM) which is active in evaluating and validating in vitro cell based assays that can be used in regulatory safety assessment of chemicals. High throughput screening approaches are being investigated to expedite the process. Effective management of reference compounds including characterisation of solubility, stability, fate and traceability, is critical to ensure quality and reliability of validation results.

Coffee Break & Networking in Exhibition Hall

Screening for Chemical Tools: Considerations on Compound Screening Collections, Assay Development and High-throughput Screening
Dominique Audenaert, Head of Facility, VIB - Ghent University, Belgium

In marker-based assays, the expression level of a molecular marker reports a particular biological event. This approach allows to target biological pathways and perform compound screenings in model systems to identify compounds that interfere with specific developmental processes.

Efficient Syntheses of Natural Products and their Analogues using Laboratory Automation Technology
Takashi Takahashi, President, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan

This presentation includes the efficient synthesis of taxol and 9-membered masked enediyne, aided by automated synthesizers and the continuous-flow synthesis of vitamin D3 from provitamin D3 aided by micro-flow reactors.

Close of Conference