Instrumentation

This Screening Instrumentation program is focused on development of innovative instrumentation for high throughput screening of synthetic chemical and natural product libraries such as the ones that will be registered and housed in the NIH-sponsored Molecular Libraries Screening Center Network. High throughput molecular screening (HTS) is the automated, rapid testing of thousands of distinct small molecules or probes in cellular models of biological mechanisms or disease, or in biochemical or pharmacological assays. Active compounds identified through HTS can provide powerful research tools to elucidate biological processes through chemical genetic approaches, or can form the basis of therapeutics or imaging agent development programs. HTS has experienced revolutionary changes in technology since the advent of molecular biology and combinatorial chemistry, and the incorporation of modern information management systems. Current HTS instrumentation allows screening of hundreds of thousands of compounds in a single day at a rate orders of magnitude greater than was possible a decade ago. However, there are still bottlenecks which currently limit HTS capacity, such as (a) compound collection maintenance, tracking, and disbursement, and (b) rapidity, accuracy, and content of assay instrumentation.
This program sought proposals to develop HTS instrumentation that is not only faster and more efficient than currently available systems, but also substantially more sensitive with high levels of specificity, reproducibility, and accuracy. Eight R01 grants were awarded in 2005.

Further Information

For further information about the Pilot Phase Instrumentation RFA, see RFA-RM-04-020

For MLPCN phase Instrumentation information, see Tech Development

Please see the left menu for information on the Instrumentation Projects funded for the pilot phase and production phase, or see Funded Research for all ML initiatives

For currently available ML funding opportunities, see Funding Opportunities

Or contact:

Ajay, Ph.D.
National Human Genome Research Institute