The Laboratory Robotics Interest Group
Mid Atlantic Chapter
January 2005 Meeting
Automated Sample Management, Storage & Retrieval
Technology Exhibition & Presentations
Date: Thursday, January 13,
2005
Place: Somerset Marriott Hotel, 110 Davidson Ave., Somerset, NJ 08873
Phone: 732-560-0500, Fax: 732-560-3669
Itinerary: Exhibition & Social Period - 3:00pm
to 6:00pm
Workshop on LabView - 4:00pm to 5:30pm
Meeting & Presentations - 6:00pm
to 9:00pm
Pre-Registration: REQUESTED, not required. Pre-registering will
allow us to more accurately gauge seating requirements and refreshment
needs. Pre-register
on the web at:
https://www.lab-robotics.org/member/meetings.asp?rid=1.
There will be
drawings from the web registrants for our LRIG
laser pointers, Photon key ring lights and any donated prizes.
Door Prizes:
Laser Pointers --- LRIG
Carry Bags --- Manufacturing Applications eXperts
Photon Keyring Lights --- LRIG
Door prizes for the drawings gratefully accepted - a great way to get your
name out!
Agenda: The High Throughput Screening industry faces the bottleneck
of an increasing amount of lead compounds making automated compound storage and
retrieval a necessary process to achieve the desired assay level. A recent
D&MD report noted: "... it may no longer be sufficient to provide increased
throughput for screening while doing nothing to affect downstream bottlenecks in
later-stage screening. Alternatively, it may no longer be sufficient to
provide high-throughput screening solutions that fail to effectively interface
with compound storage and retrieval systems." This meeting is focused on current
and future approaches in Automated Sample Management, Storage & Retrieval technologies,
as well as compound stability and integrity issues. There is a profile of
the Automated Compound Storage and Retrieval field at:
https://www.lab-robotics.org/Mid_Atlantic/meetings/0301_acsr_synopsis.htm
Recent advancements in this important field will be discussed in
presentations from 6:00pm to 9:00pm. Exhibitors will display their latest
technology from 3:00pm to 6:00pm.
We have a new feature at this meeting! One of our LRIG Mid Atlantic
Steering Committee members,
Kapeel Krishana, has experience with National Instruments'
LabView control software. Kapeel
has volunteered to conduct a hands-on workshop at this meeting to introduce LRIG
members to this versatile interfacing package. Theory of operation will be
presented as well as real interfacing examples. The workshop is free to
LRIG members and will take place from 4:00 to 5:30pm. Please register for
"LRIG Mid Atlantic -
Workshop on LabView" at
https://www.lab-robotics.org/member/meetings.asp?rid=1
Food and refreshments will be available FREE OF CHARGE
during the Exhibition and Social Period.
There is always a Job posting board at the social. Please encourage your recruiters to
give you material to post and distribute. Openings may also be posted at:
https://www.lab-robotics.org/forum/default.asp?CAT_ID=2.
There is no fee to attend the meeting.
Presentation:
Compound precipitation from DMSO and the synergy between water uptake and
freeze / thaw cycles
Christopher Lipinski, Ph.D.; Adjunct Senior Research Fellow
Pfizer Global Research and Development, Pfizer, Inc., retired
Freeze / thaw cycles have been recognized as deleterious to compound storage in
DMSO stock solutions but largely for the wrong reasons. Historically, freeze
thaw cycles have been viewed mostly as harmful with respect to compound
stability, i.e. chemical degradation. This is probably incorrect. Freeze / thaw
cycles in synergy with water uptake into DMSO are primarily harmful with respect
to compound precipitation. The synergy aspect is very important. It may be
difficult to experimentally show an adverse effect of freeze thaw cycles if the
DMSO is bone dry or if materials initially dissolved in DMSO are crystalline as
opposed to amorphous. It is the uncontrolled water uptake into DMSO stocks in
synergy with cooling that is the problem and that is solved by single freeze
thaw tube storage systems. The bottom line is to treat DMSO in compound storage
as if it were a water sensitive reagent.
Can anything be done about precipitated samples? Rather remarkably the answer
is yes. In the majority of cases precipitated samples can be re-dissolved by
sonication. This behavior is beneficially unexpected, is without literature
precedent and is counter to simplistic thermodynamic considerations. In a
minority of cases sonication induces precipitation from super saturated
solutions. This behavior does have limited literature precedent.
Presentation:
Fully Automated Compound Distribution Center
Collette DeChard;
Manager Basic Biological Support; Compound Management Group
Merck & Co. Inc.; Rahway, NJ
Four years ago Merck's Compound Management Group started a journey to design,
develop and implement a Fully Automated Compound Distribution Center. Come see
how our vision became a reality!
Presentation:
Leveraging Compound Management Capabilities in Support of Drug Discovery:
From Sample Archive to Sample Distribution - Driving Efficiency and Improving
Productivity
Michael J. Sofia,
Ph.D.; Group Director New Leads Chemistry
Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharmaceutical Research Institute; Wallingford, CT
The physical compounds within a pharmaceutical company compound collection are
the embodiment of many years of creativity and innovation, and through the
screening process, these compound assets are the genesis of new leads and future
drugs. Therefore, for the future success of the business, it is essential that
these assets be effectively managed and leveraged to support all drug discovery
needs from lead discovery through lead optimization. Pharmaceutical compound
management organizations have evolved to manage these critical compound assets
and to service the vast array of compound needs for global discovery operations.
Technology advances and process optimization have broadened the scope of
compound management impact on the drug discovery environment and have lead to
significant productivity and efficiency gains. The expanded role of compound
management within the BMS drug discovery environment and the impact of
technology and process development on functional and organizational productivity
and efficiency will be described.
Presentation:
ACMF: The AstraZeneca Solution to the Challenge of Today Compound
Management
Dalin Nie; Head, Compound Management & Automation; & Deborah
Hartman, Lead Discovery, AstraZeneca
AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals; Wilmington, DE
The corporate compound library
is a key asset in pharmaceutical industry. Effective management of this asset is
critical to the drug discovery pipeline. Advances in Lead Generation have
produced an increasing need for high quality samples, and a growing demand for
large-scale library subsetting for alternative screening methods. New solutions
are required to preserve & monitor compound integrity, as well as to track and
deliver hundreds of thousands of samples accurately in a timely manner. In order
to meet this challenge, an innovative automated compound management facility (ACMF)
was established in Wilmington, Delaware as part of AstraZeneca worldwide
investment.
This $13M ACMF facility features some of the most advanced technologies and
automation in compound storage and handling, with the ability to randomly access
up to 30,000 samples daily, and process them into assay-ready formats for
testing. The facility has the capacity to store over 2.8 million samples in an
optimized environment, and the ability to produce assay plates in nanoliter
volumes on demand for HTS. It will process compound requests from local & remote
research sites with delivery time under 48 hours. A modular approach with
in-house system integration was adopted to incorporate selected instrumentation
& technologies from over 20 different vendors, providing flexibility to
accommodate process changes and future technology advancement. The facility will
greatly enhance the speed, efficiency, and cost effectiveness of drug discovery
research. Key learning points from our experience of designing & implementing
such facility will be shared in the presentation.
Presentation:
Impact of Acoustic Non-Contact Transfer of Compounds upon Compound Management
and Ultra High Throughput Screening
Timothy Spicer; Research
Scientist
Bristol-Myers Squibb Company; Wallingford, CT
Research and development organizations are under constant pressure to streamline
processes, remove bottlenecks and reduce costs in order to be successful in new
drug development. The demand to move from 384-well based screening to rapid and
miniaturized screening in 1536-well density formats, from a pharmaceutical
development perspective, has been a priority for many years and until recently,
largely unsatisfied. Recently, we have overcome a significant hurdle towards
that goal by implementing acoustic non contact droplet ejection (ADE) to enable
the reformatting of compounds from 384-well source plates into 1536-well assay
plates. This has been coupled to fully automated flexible screening platforms to
allow us to screen 100K compounds per day. While we have realized the power of
this new technology in terms of enabling ultra high throughput screening, there
are multiple changes that must be properly understood and implemented within our
current compound collection supply line. However, the benefit with regards to
reagent costs, consumables costs, the environment, the potential for closed loop
screening, the potential for compound conservation and the ability to
acoustically audit each source well justify these changes and will be discussed.
Exhibitors:
Visit The Laboratory Robotics
Interest Group homepage at https://www.lab-robotics.org 
