Sessions at Society for Laboratory Automation & Screening (SLAS) 2012 on Monday 6th February

HTS operations maintain large and diverse chemical libraries (10^5-10^6 compounds) for drug discovery purposes. Since the cost of a typical HTS library compound averages between $10-$100/mg, a chemical library represents a considerable financial investment that benefits from proper storage & routine maintenance. Unfortunately, even with the best stewardship solvated HTS libraries degrade over time through water absorption and storage/operational processing. Experimental assays are often plagued by compromised data due to partially degraded compounds. Complicating matters, many traditional instruments and techniques are simply inappropriate for routine quality assurance (QA) of the vast number of compounds in HTS libraries, requiring excessive analysis time, destructive sampling and high per-well reagent expenses. Consequently there is a critical need for HTS-compatible instrumentation that can perform nondestructive, rapid and cost-effective QA auditing as an integral part of a long-term compound management strategy. This presentation will focus on the development and implementation of novel compound management platform, the High-resolution Image Acquisition and Processing Instrument (HIAPI). The platform employs chemical imaging spectroscopy with machine vision for the direct and nondestructive monitoring of HTS compound libraries in microtiter plates. Examples where HIAPI-CM detects and classifies typical artifacts will be presented, including: (a) detection of insufficient sample volume, (b) detection of compound crystallization & precipitation, (c) classification of potential HTS assay interferents and (d) measurement of compound solvent hydration. In addition, the impact of integrating this novel platform into an existing HTS compound management operation will be assessed, including the fidelity of HIAPI to identify these artifacts and help troubleshoot a variety of potential error sources (liquid handling, informatics, storage, etc). In conclusion, future applications of the HIAPI platform will also be presented.