Automation in ligand binding assays

FUTURE DIRECTIONS IN LIGAND-BINDING ASSAY AUTOMATION... 

Laboratory investigations play an essential role in medicine. Laboratory results are taken into consideration in about two thirds of all medical decisions in medical systems of industrialized countries today. The vast majority of clinical chemistry analyses are based on few analytical principles including photometry, ligand binding assays and potentiometry. For these standard methods complete automation has been achieved and multi-channel, random access analyzers realize several hundred analyses per instrument and hour on a very high level of user-friendliness. Consequently, clinical chemistry is very cost efficient today typically clinical chemistry analyses contribute less than 5 % of all costs of tertiary care hospitals. 

Using the TAR RNA ligand acetylpromazine as a template structure, FLUX suggested compound 7.8 as a result of automated fragment-based de novo design. Compound 7.9 was derived from this precursor, synthesized and successfully tested in a binding assay. The distribution of pharmacophoric points is very similar in 7.7 and 7.9. 

The focus of this chapter is on automating ligand-binding assays in support of clinical and nonclinical studies. This chapter will not specifically address laboratory software systems or LIMS, although many of the tools for implementing laboratory automation can be applied to these systems as well. 

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