Business
communication and manage critical path, timelines and budget. Since project management is a new skill in the academic sector, the management prac- tices are very flexible and project managers are constantly learning and adapting, based on indi- vidual projects and their varied objectives. The project manager also provides flowchart schemat- ics for project timeline with go/no go decision points and deliverables, and also provides grant submission support on translating drug target to clinical proof of concept. Based on their pharma- ceutical development experience, the project man- ager, in collaboration with the HTS director and the principal investigator, defines key decision points from drug target identification and valida- tion through clinical proof of concept, and identi- fies data sets from experiments and studies to sup- port each of the decision points.
Achieving self-sustainable AHTSC facilities: the path forward Academic screening consortia. Academic service cores must compete with CROs to maintain via- bility. In order to survive in this competitive atmosphere, academic screening centres need to merge forces to endure in this difficult environ- ment of reduced federal funding and competition. Regional consortia would fill this need, allowing sharing of compound libraries and other screening resources between academic screening labs in areas where institutional support for core HTS functions is sparse.
Compound libraries and management. First, com- pound storage and management could be organ- ised and shared between AHTSCFs. Compound libraries could be purchased by a group of AHTSCFs, divided and shared equally. In addition, this could entail sharing the tasks of organising the libraries and compound collections, and avoid duplicate efforts and libraries between screening cores. This type of library compound sharing is currently being practised by Melvin Reichman at the Lankenau Institute for Medical Research (LIMR) Chemical Genomics Center (LCGC), a screening facility in Wynnewood, PA. The KU HTSL has already collaborated with the LCGC for compound sharing, and KU HTSL has carried out several small screening campaigns with com- pounds from the LCGC library. Most academic HTSLs often do not have sufficient funding to sup- port the purchase and maintenance of a large com- pound library and an expensive compound storage system, but could afford this type of sharing scheme, ordering assay-ready plates or small sam-
Drug Discovery World Winter 2011/12
ple compound libraries or subsets from larger aca- demic screening facilities.
Unique instrument and technology sharing. While all screening cores have basic liquid handlers, bulk dispensers and plate readers in stock, the limited budget of academic service cores limits their ability to purchase, maintain and operate the wide range of specialty instruments and platforms available to HTS. As different screening labs focus on different specialties, a consortium would enable academic screening cores to share their talents with other cores, screening and non-screening. For instance, KU HTSL has several unique platforms utilising novel label-free technology, but had (until this past year) lacked instrumentation for ion channel research. David Weaver’s Vanderbilt Screening Center, however, specialises in ion channel research, and is equipped with multiple Hamamatsu FDSS systems (Function Drug Screening System), and is well experienced in screening assays dealing with GPCRs, ion channels and transporters. A team of KU HTSL researchers and the director recently travelled to Vanderbilt to seek advice and input relating to this type of instrumentation. These types of communication between academic screening cores can unite and strengthen our edge against competition from industry, while adding value to services provided to the HTS core’s clients.
Data analysis and information management. All screening labs need adequate data analysis capacity, but more advanced data sets, such as high content screening data sets, can be more readily and quick- ly analysed by those academic centres that spe- cialise in those areas. The prevalence of internet- based cloud storage and data sharing provide the means for shared assay data management, also. Small academic screening cores without sufficient funds for a laboratory information management system (LIMS) can collaborate with a secure, web- based LIMS of another screening core. Expertise sharing between academic cores can lead to new solutions for data management and storage. The chief bioinformatician at KU HTSL, Jianwen Fang, developed his own LIMS, called K-Screen, in part thanks to the help of the creators of MScreen from the University of Michigan. KU HTSL’s K-Screen is a database management system designed for high throughput screening data management, analysis, mining and visualisation, and was developed using open source Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP platform9. By using open source software programs, and the inception of the homemade LIMS thanks to collab- oration with the University of Michigan, Jianwen
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