Course in Umeå, February 20-14, 2017.
The course gives a practical basis for assay development in high throughput screening. The course is given as a practical complement to the course “Introduction to high throughput screening”. High throughput screening (HTS) is a technique used to identify biologically active small organic molecules through screening of compound libraries with the help of robust test systems and advanced instrumentation. The course includes several aspects of assay development applicable to both target-based and cell-based assays. The course covers which parameters that are of importance for optimization of an assay. These different parameters will be tested empirically in the laboratory and their significance calculated using Z’. During the course a small-scale screen will be executed. The students will thereby be given knowledge about the importance of good screening logistics and gain insight into the amount of data generated and handling thereof. The different aspects of hit selection and hit validation will also be discussed. During the course the students will be introduced to instrumentation commonly used in high throughput screening such as liquid handling instrumentation and plate readers.