Cell Based Assays

Darren Cawkill, Senior Principal Scientist , Pfizer.

Distinguishing agonists, antagonists, modulators, and differential signaling

• How does it compare to traditional methods?
• Where is it best utilized in the drug discovery process?
• Do impedence-based and optical-based biosensors give similar results?

Clay Scott, Associate Director, Lead Generation , AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals.

• Human Embryonic Stem Cells (hESCs) now can be employed for drug discovery
• High Content Screening ideally suited for hit identification and secondary assays
• Screens for small molecules that influence stem cell fate have been performed successfully
• Future hold great promise for more physiologically relevant cell models of disease

Paul Andrews, Senior Scientist, Drug Discovery Unit, University of Dundee.

Using the Corning® Epic® System

• Introduction to the Epic® system
• Cell assays principle
• Some applications: GPCR, cytotoxicity, ion channel
• Compound library screening

Sylvie Bailly, Corning Epic® Applciation Scientist, Corning Life Sciences.

Transient transfection for cell based assays

• Replacing stable cell lines with transiently transfected cells
• Advantages of large scale transfections by electroporation
• Successful applications in cell based assays

James Brady, Director, Technical Applications , MaxCyte Inc.

How three-dimensional cell-based assays are about to change our world

• Light sheet based fluorescence microscopy
• Three-dimensional cell biology
• Novel approaches to physiologically relevant model-based life sciences
• Drug and toxicity tests with three-dimensional cell-based assays

Dr Ernst H. K. Stelzer, Scientific Group Leader, European Molecular Biology Laboratory.

• Highly representative of the in vivo state: characteristics of specific drug targets behaving in their native form
• Used together with animal in vivo models and human disease tissue systems to progress drug molecules to clinical trials.
• Advances in sensitive screening technologies and enhanced diversity and availability of primary cell assay samples enable the use of primary cell assays at earlier stages in drug discovery programmes.
• Examples of mechanistic and phenotypic assays in primary cell systems, together with an outlook for future directions

Steven Ludbrook, Section Head, GlaxoSmithKline.

Scientific and business rationale to derisk the program early

• Science and economics of drug-induced liver injury
• Assays wih transformed or primary cells?
• Single end point or multiparameter readout?
• Validation data and case studies

Katya Tsaioun, President, Apredica.

Current challenges in reagent provision - cell line generation for difficult targets and the possible future for primary cells in primary screening

• Importance of cell line development for enabling cell-based assays
• Case study: fluorescence activated cell sorting (FACS) and automation (Cello) to generate high quality cell lines for difficult targets
• Case study: Investment in thorough cell line characterisation is worthwhile
• Could we replace recombinant cell lines with primary cells in our early cell-based screening?
• Case study: Possibilities regarding assay development in primary cells

Darren Cawkill, Senior Principal Scientist , Pfizer.

• Centralisation of cell based screening
• Process quality - LIMS, Acoustic dispensing, automation
• Efficiency improvements made in cell based screening - Multiplex assays, cmyc ELISA's
• Future improvements

Jon Orme, Associate Principal Scientist, AstraZeneca.