The Laboratory Robotics Interest Group
Mid Atlantic Chapter
January 2004 Meeting
Automated Sample Management, Storage & Retrieval
Technology Exhibition & Presentations
Date: Wednesday, January 14, 2004
Place: Doubletree Hotel, 200 Atrium
Drive, Somerset, NJ 08873
Phone: 732-469-2600, Fax: 732-509-4534
Itinerary: Exhibition & Social Period -
3:00 to 6:00 PM
Meeting & Presentations - 6:00
to 9:00 PM
Pre-Registration: REQUESTED, not required. Pre-registering will
allow us to more accurately gauge seating requirements and refreshment
needs. Pre-register
on the web at:
http://lab-robotics.org/member/meetings.asp?rid=1.
There will be
drawings from the pre-registrants for our beautiful LRIG
laser pointers, Photon keyring lights and any vendor supplied prizes.
Door Prizes:
Laser Pointers (LRIG)
Photon Keyring Lights (LRIG)
T-Shirts (Spotfire)
Agenda: The High Throughput Screening industry faces the bottleneck
of an increasing amount of lead compounds making automated compound storage and
retrieval a necessary process to achieve the desired assay level. A recent
D&MD report noted: "... it may no longer be sufficient to provide increased
throughput for screening while doing nothing to affect downstream bottlenecks in
later-stage screening. Alternatively, it may no longer be sufficient to
provide high-throughput screening solutions that fail to effectively interface
with compound storage and retrieval systems." This meeting is focused on current
and future approaches in Automated Sample Management, Storage & Retrieval technologies.
Recent advancements in this
important field will be discussed in presentations
from 6:00 to 9:00 PM. Exhibitors will display their latest technology
from 3:00 to 6:00 PM. There is a profile of the Automated Compound Storage
and Retrieval field at:
http://www.lab-robotics.org/Mid_Atlantic/meetings/0301_acsr_synopsis.htm
We have invited the members of the
International Society for Biological and Environmental Repositories (ISBER)
to participate in this meeting. ISBER brings the perspective of biological
and environmental repositories that automation has not fully penetrated yet.
Our organizations can benefit from shared learnings and this meeting is an
example of our
first
collaboration.
Food and refreshments will be available FREE OF CHARGE
during the Exhibition and Social Period.
There is always a Job posting board at the social. Please encourage your recruiters to
give you material to post and distribute. Openings may also be posted at:
http://lab-robotics.org/forum/default.asp?CAT_ID=2.
There is no fee to attend the meeting.
CALL FOR PAPERS:
Please submit abstracts for consideration as podium presentations by contacting
Andy Zaayenga <
>.
Presentation: Compound Solubility
and HTS Screening
Christopher Lipinski, Ph.D., Adjunct Senior Research Fellow
Pfizer Global Research and Development, Pfizer, Inc., retired
Sessions on reproducibility in HTS screening appear in the 2003 and 2004
annual meetings of the Society for Biomolecular Screening. The focus has largely
been on the biological aspect, i.e. how large is the overlap in screening
results when the same library of compounds is tested against the same target but
using different assay methods. What is only slowly being realized is that there
is another dimension to the HTS screening quality issue. HTS assay quality is
very much better if you really know the concentration of compound in DMSO stocks
and if you really know the compound concentration when the DMSO stocks are
diluted into aqueous assay medium. Relevant to this issue are the following
sub-topics: 1) from the 1880’s Oswalds “rules of stages” and why it explains
many DMSO solubility issues; 2) the dependence of DMSO freezing point on water
content; 3) what exactly is there about freeze thaw cycles that causes
solubility problems; 4) why is there such erratic behavior in terms of
precipitation from DMSO and 5) what is the evidence that globally about 20% of
compounds might ultimately have a DMSO solubility problem. Additionally, what
has changed in the last year in terms of software and hardware that could help
with the compound in DMSO solubility problem will be discussed.
Editor's Note: Dr. Lipinski is the author of the noted "Rule of Five"
in determining if compounds meet "drug-like" criteria. Further detail may
be found in a PowerPoint presentation at
<http://pc-gamba.math.tau.ac.il/Education/CS01a/GroupSeminar/LipinskiRuleOfFive.ppt>
or an ACS article at
<http://pubs.acs.org/cen/coverstory/8017/8017computers.html>.
Presentation:
Septa Applications for Compound Preparation
Sam Abdelhamid and Paul Blake
Purdue Pharma, Cranbury, NJ, USA
Controlling the amount of water in chemical samples has become a priority
among compound preparation departments. It is well known that DMSO can quickly
absorb water from the surrounding air. This can compromise screening samples by
lowering the concentration of dissolved material, and or causing sample
precipitation. The introduction of septa based applications cannot only save
time, by eliminating de-capping steps; they can also reduce the amount of water
absorbed by solvents. By using vented tips that are filled with nitrogen, it is
now possible to aspirate and dispense solutions from vials and deep well plates,
without allowing the sample to come in contact with air. The use of liquid
handling systems that incorporate septa and vented tips can also be used for
combinatorial chemistry methods that use water sensitive reactants (i.e. acid
chlorides). Septa caps ensure that moisture does not come into contact with air
sensitive reagents. Various customs racks, holders, and vented tips were
integrated with our current liquid handling procedures to yield liquid transfers
under an inert atmosphere. The equipment and supplies used to implement these
procedures, along with results, will be discussed in detail.
Presentation:
Biological and Environmental Repositories -
Current and Future Directions
Robert Hanner, Ph.D., President
International
Society for Biological and Environmental Repositories (ISBER)
Repository based specimen collections are an essential part of the
infrastructure underpinning life sciences and biotechnology. They can contain
environmental samples, culturable organisms (e.g. micro-organisms, plant, animal
and human cells), replicable parts of these (e.g. genomes, plasmids, viruses,
cDNAs), viable but not yet culturable organisms, tissues and organs, as well as
databases containing geographical, molecular, physiological and structural
information relevant to these collections. Such repositories contain valuable
(often irreplaceable) samples that might have been collected for one purpose,
but because of the unique population they represent, might be useful to many
future investigators for many other purposes. The International Society for
Biological and Environmental Repositories (www.ISBER.org) serves as a forum to
share knowledge and experience among repositories, so that collectively, they
can operate more efficiently to build and maintain collections while giving
consideration to emerging new technologies. Because repositories tend to expand
with time and the emergence of new research techniques, a pressing need exists
to facilitate the automation of many repository activities, which involve both
specimens and associated data. To illustrate this phenomenon several new
initiatives are discussed, including the National Dialogue on Cancer, the
National Childrens Study, and DNA barcoding.
Presentation: Implementation of a
Liquid Storage System with Horizontal Carousels for High-Throughput Screening
Y. Lin Chang, Ph.D.; Head, Compound, Data and Document Management
Aventis
Pharmaceuticals, Bridgewater, NJ, USA
Effective management of liquid samples and screening collections has been
recognized as a critical factor to the success of high throughput screening.
After thorough review of many different automated liquid storage and retrieval
systems currently available in the industry, we chose to build a brand new
liquid store with twin horizontal carousels within –20 deg chamber in the new
research building at Bridgewater, NJ site at Aventis to support HTS and the
follow-up drug discovery effort in US.
The design and the choice of technology was based on the needs in supporting
many site processes as well as to complement the global strategy in compound
management to improve the availability, efficiency and turn around time of US
compounds and plates.
Presentation: Integration of Sample
Management & HTS at Wyeth
Michael Longden, M.S.,
Supervisor of Screening Resources Group, Screening Sciences;
John Morin, Ph.D., Director HTS, Screening Sciences; Dominick Mobilio,
Ph.D., Director of Cheminformatics and Compound Resources, Screening Sciences
Wyeth Research, Pearl River, NY, USA
Two years ago, Wyeth Research presented at MipTec 2001 their plans for a hybrid
sample storage and retrieval system composed of modular units provided by 2
different vendors. (TekCel and The Technology Partnership) Although the price of
innovation included some unplanned but not unexpected delays, this system is now
complete. The installation will be described in detail, including the metrics of
operation. The chemical integrity and quantitative recovery of compounds from
this system will also be evaluated. The workflow enabled by this system and the
IT infrastructure that supports it have bridged the gap between compounds and
HTS at Wyeth.
Exhibitors:
Visit The Laboratory Robotics
Interest Group homepage at http://lab-robotics.org