I.DOT HT for High-Throughput Screening: Assay Miniaturization

Small scale approach with big breakthroughs

High-Throughput screening (HTS) is one of the most widely used processes for hit discovery in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries and is becoming increasingly popular for basic and applied research.

With the advancement in combinatorial chemistry and genomics, around 100 million compounds could be synthesized for screening. In parallel, with an increasing number of therapeutic targets emerging, miniaturized formats are essential to cope with such a multitude of available potential targets.

Miniaturization of different types of analytical procedures in HTS is rapidly transforming the outlook for hit discovery in pharmaceutical research as it accelerates the R&D cycle and significantly reduces the cost.

Reducing assay volumes to a few microliters decreases the amount of assay constituents required, thus extending the lifetime of valuable chemicals and reagents, and reducing the demand for expensive reagents. Studies indicate that a 16-fold increase in throughput is achievable, by moving from 96- to 1536-well plate formats. Cost savings achieved from assay miniaturization could permit a broader profiling of pharmacological activity to be tested within HTS screens, generating valuable data on compound specificity.

However, the quality, assay design, efficiency, and robustness remain a challenge to make it suitable for HTS environment.  To address these challenges, it requires specialist technology for plate preparation, liquid handling, and the subsequent analysis of the results.

To fulfill the industry requirements and overcome challenges in liquid handling, DISPENDIX, with our expertise in non-contact liquid handling solutions in the nano- to microliter range, has developed a premium liquid handling solution: I.DOT HT Liquid Handler. Specifically designed for high-throughput screening.

A High-Throughput Non-Contact Liquid Handling System

The system uses eight individually controlled positive pressure channels to generate droplets from 4- to 50-nanoliters from a small hole at the bottom of the 384 source well plate. Each channel can generate up to 100 droplets per second giving control and speed to the users. It can handle multiple liquid classes, including 100% DMSO, works with low dead volume, and works with the I.DOT Non-Contact Dispenser's unique built-in droplet verification technology. The I.DOT HT Non-Contact Dispenser eliminates cross-contamination, reduces time and labour, dispenses low and accurate reagents volumes, cuts cost on reagents and pipette tips, eliminates manual pipetting errors, and increases reliability and reproducibility. Thus, the I.DOT HT Non-Contact Dispenser provides fast, reliable, and accurate results in drug discovery workflows.

Further, miniaturization of HTS protocols with the I.DOT HT Non-Contact Dispenser enables to run up to 384 different test compounds in one run, this is giving the user true flexibility in dispensing solutions of different liquid viscosities, including 100% DMSO, H20 und glycerol-based liquids.  It gives you freedom to choose from any SBS standard plate formats up to 1536 experiment well plates with fast, accurate and reliable liquid dispensing, zero cross-contamination, and negligible dead volumes. Moreover, the compact design of the I.DOT HT Non-Contact Dispenser reduces the space requirements.

Benefits of implementing the I.DOT HT Liquid Handler in miniaturized HTS:

• Drastically lowering the cost of chemical, reagents, and consumables
• Significantly saving time on plate preparation (Dispense 100 nl across a 96-well plate in 10 seconds, 384-well plate in 20 seconds, and 1536-well plate in 1min. 24 sec
• Reduced space requirements
• Generating high-quality data
• Eliminating cross-contaminations
• Maximizing the throughput
• Internal quality control through droplet verification

Learn more about the I.DOT HT Liquid Handler and the benefits of miniaturized HTS assay protocols and maximize profits or book a demo today.