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Keywords
Pharmaceuticals industry, Workstations, Robotics
Abstract
Compares the various features and advantages of using integrated robotic systems or dedicated workstations for drug discovery. Also describes hybrid systems. Provides guidance on the criteria for system selection.
Introduction
Over the last 10 years, high throughput screening (HTS) has become a standard technique of the drug discovery process in pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. Although there is a wide variety of detection methodologies used in HTS, including absorbance, fluorescence, chemiluminescence and isotopic, the primary drivers of increasing throughput while decreasing the cost per test has influenced the development of assay chemistries and instrumentation to those that are less expensive, easily scalable and easy to run. Today, fluorescence-based assays that can be reduced in volume to a few microliters have become very popular, especially homogenous fluorescence assays. Homogenous assay systems require only liquid additions, no separation of filtration steps, which reduces the required number of assay steps and therefore increases throughput. Homogenous assays also typically allow for lower volume assays, enabling the use of high-density microplates such as 384- or 1536-well plates. Detection instrumentation to read 384- and 1536-well plates is now widely available, using both imaging and point-reading technologies. For homogenous assays, a single reduced data value from each well is typically collected.
Although HTS is an established and accepted means to accelerate the drug discovery process, opinions vary widely on how best to utilize automation. Although there are almost as many automation solutions as HTS laboratories, examining the extremes in the range of automation solutions can aid in deciding what kind of system is appropriate for a particular laboratory. Automation systems have been developed to balance implementation time and cost with the throughput and biological requirements of the assay. At one end are workstations, which are designed to perform one task in a batchwise fashion with the aid of a user. At the other end are integrated robotic systems, integrating multiple instruments to perform multiple tasks with extended unattended operation. Comparisons of workstations to integrated robotic systems have resulted in favoring workstations (Oldenburg, 1999) and robotic systems (Wildey et al., 1999) for particular classes of assays. This review will focus on the characteristics of these systems and present considerations to aid in the decision-making...