search.noResults

search.searching

dataCollection.invalidEmail
note.createNoteMessage

search.noResults

search.searching

orderForm.title

orderForm.productCode
orderForm.description
orderForm.quantity
orderForm.itemPrice
orderForm.price
orderForm.totalPrice
orderForm.deliveryDetails.billingAddress
orderForm.deliveryDetails.deliveryAddress
orderForm.noItems
Laboratory Automation


Getting a handle on liquids: automation solutions for drug discovery


The accurate and precise measurement of liquids and the transport of exact volumes between vessels, or from one instrument to another, are processes that constitute the very essence of research. However, while this simple requirement for the meticulous handling of liquids has been ever-present in laboratories the world over, there has been dramatic evolution in the techniques and equipment used to perform such tasks, from the humble Pasteur pipette to today’s automated liquid handling instruments. This article focuses on the latest developments in automated liquid handling for drug discovery, and the current trends that are shaping the industry, such as low- volume handling and miniaturisation, before looking ahead to the next steps that will lead to tomorrow’s breakthroughs.


T


he need for high accuracy and high through- put in the search for new drug candidates has driven the development from manual


methods towards automated liquid handling. Automation provides the throughput and consisten- cy required to screen huge numbers of samples as rapidly as possible, leaving human hands free for less repetitive and more creative tasks, such as designing experiments and data analysis. “Automated liquid handling addresses a multi-


tude of high-throughput screening (HTS) chal- lenges,” said Kevin Truempi, Product Manager of Automation Solutions at Agilent. “There is an ever-growing demand to screen and collect more data over multiple timepoints, vastly increasing the sample count for processing and analysis. Automated liquid handling systems are crucial for generating reproducible data at high throughput for improved downstream analysis.” When implemented correctly, automation is


Drug Discovery World Winter 2019/20


unsurpassable in terms of its ability to increase throughput capacity compared to what is possible by hand. By shortening screening time and improv- ing the reliability and reproducibility of data, deci- sions can be made more quickly and with greater confidence, which can ultimately lead to significant cost savings. As Carola Schmidt, Global Director of Automated Solutions, Applied Genomics at PerkinElmer, explained: “Standardisation of drug discovery workflows by automating the liquid han- dling processes offers the highest return on invest- ment in terms of the reduction of human error and accuracy improvement.” The challenge for automated liquid handling in


drug discovery is adapting to complex, physiolog- ically-relevant assays. It is the systems that address this specific need that have the potential to deliver the most significant reductions in costs and time- lines while enabling drug discovery companies to explore a much broader part of the available


17


By Helen Stewart-Miller and Thomas Hope


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68