Challenges and Opportunities in Enabling High-Throughput, Miniaturized High Content Screening

Area of Science:

• Pharmacology and Toxicology
• Biotechnology
• Cell Biology

Background:

• High content screening (HCS) is increasingly vital in drug discovery for physiologically relevant cell-based assays.
• Image-based HCS offers multiparametric data and subcellular resolution, ideal for complex biological questions.
• Historical limitations in hardware, informatics, and data interpretation have hindered large-scale HCS adoption.

Purpose of the Study:

• To present the infrastructure developed for 1536-well high content screening at Bristol-Myers Squibb.
• To address the challenges associated with large-scale, miniaturized HCS.
• To share key lessons learned in implementing high-throughput HCS.

Main Methods:

• Development and application of specialized infrastructure for 1536-well plate formats.
• Implementation of informatics frameworks to manage high-throughput HCS data.
• Strategies for interpreting large volumes of content-rich image data.

Main Results:

• Successful establishment of a 1536-well HCS platform.
• Overcoming hardware and informatics hurdles for miniaturized HCS.
• Demonstrated feasibility of screening large compound libraries using HCS.

Conclusions:

• The developed infrastructure supports large-scale compound screening using 1536-well HCS.
• Addressing data management and interpretation is crucial for high-throughput HCS success.
• Bristol-Myers Squibb's approach provides a valuable model for the drug discovery industry.