The Englander Institute’s High Throughput Drug Screening (HTDS) Platform is an integrative robotics system that connects some of the most coveted laboratory equipment on the market into a fully modular, HEPA filtered unit with capabilities such as high content imaging, endpoint reads using a variety of PMT channels, in house static and dynamic incubator systems, a centrifuge and a state-of-the-art liquid handler connected by two robotic arms and a powerful scheduling software. The robotic platform allows us to screen a range of compound library and chemical libraries of tens of thousands of novel compounds in a short period of time.
By using our Operetta CLS High Content Imaging System we can measure up to 50 image parameters comprising intensity, position, morphology (such as solid vs. hollow sphere, cell shape, etc.) and texture, which are analyzed by a linear classifier algorithm based on how these change upon drug treatment.
The successful implementation of this technology will enable us to identify optimal treatments for individual patients with advanced cancer and develop treatments that based upon the specialized makeup of an individual’s cancer, rather than a standardized one-size-fits-all approach based upon the location of the disease.
The EIPM pipeline is unique as it systematically links clinical response data with both genomics and high throughput drug screening data and creates a system that facilitates direct feedback to scientists for repurposing/discovering new compounds which has more accurate predictions of patient response. If successful, it could transform how patients are treated, offering precise molecularly tested treatment options unique to individual tumors, linking tumor response and genomic data to facilitate the development of highly targeted clinical trials; and is laying the groundwork for precision medicine co-clinical trials, a real-time approach to high throughput drug screening in patients with advanced solid tumors.
