Screening automation typical

Reactors for this stage of screening are typically highly automated and individually controlled with respect to, e. g., temperature and pressure, and ideally they allow on-line monitoring of the course of the reaction. The layout of the libraries... 

HTS is usually carried out it multiwell plates and the industry has settled on certain standard formats. One key standard is that most screening assays are carried out in 96 (8 12) or 384 (16 24) well plates with a standard footprint. This standard is important because most automation is optimized for use with these plates and attendant assay volumes in the 100 pL range. Furthermore, source plates containing test compound are typically stored in a similar configuration, allowing for more efficient transfer of test compound from the source plate to the assay plate. Various types of plates are available to match different assay formats, including... 

A regularly formed crystal of reasonable size (typically >500 pm in each dimension) is required for X-ray diffraction. Samples of pure protein are screened against a matrix of buffers, additives, or precipitants for conditions under which they form crystals. This can require many thousands of trials and has benefited from increased automation over the past five years. Most large crystallographic laboratories now have robotics systems, and the most sophisticated also automate the visualization of the crystallization experiments, to monitor the appearance of crystalline material. Such developments [e.g., Ref. 1] are adding computer visualization and pattern recognition to the informatics requirements. 

In reversed-phase HPLC, column temperature is a strong determinant of retention time and also affects column selectivity. A column oven is therefore required for most automated pharmaceutical assays to improve retention time precision, typically at temperatures of 30-50°C. Temperatures >60°C are atypical due to concerns about thermal degradation of the analytes and column lifetimes. Exceptions are found in high-throughput screening where higher temperatures are used to increase flow and efficiency. Ambient or snb-ambient operation is sometimes found in chiral separations to enhance selectivity. Column ovens... 

A portable and automated field screening, for assessing contamination by TNT in military sites, was reported by Pamula in 2004. Microfiter droplets of TNT in dimethylsulfoxide and KOH in water are reacted on a chip in a programmed way, to form the typical color. The reported detection of TNT is linear in the range of 12.5-50 Ig/ml [101]. 

Mass spectrometric methods are fast and can be automated. Thus, they are ideal methods for high throughput screening. Compared to ESI-MS, MALDI-MS shows typically higher tolerance against impurities like buffers, for example. Therefore, samples can be measured which are directly taken from a test solution without further pretreatment. On the other hand, electrospray mass... 

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