Popular tool for drug discovery just got 10 times faster

WEST LAFAYETTE, US: Researchers at Purdue University have just made high throughput screening, a process often used in drug discovery, 10 times faster than previous methods.

High-throughput screening uses robotics, data processing software, liquid handling devices and sensitive detectors to quickly conduct millions of chemicals, genetic and pharmacological tests. It allows researchers to identify active compounds, antibodies or genes that modulate a particular biomolecular pathway, which is especially useful for drug discovery.

“The area of high-throughput library screening reached a plateau, where the fastest screens took about eight seconds per target. If you can reduce that time by a factor of ten, which is what we’re reporting, then you can potentially do library screens that might have taken months in days,” said Graham Cooks, the Henry Hass distinguished professor of analytical chemistry at Purdue, who led the research.

Cooks’ lab combined desorption electrospray ionization (DESI) mass spectrometry, a method of making ions from solid samples, with robotic sampling technologies to create a faster screening process. The research was published in the journal Chemical Science.

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