Industry-Sponsored Workshops

Workshops That Help You Focus on the Future

Monday, January 26, 2009

• Agilent Technologies (Booth 327)
  www.velocity11.com

  Speaker: Sharon Gubby, AstraZeneca

  The Integration of the TETRA "Jellyfish" Reader Onto a Agilent Technologies BioCel and it's Validation for Automated FLIPR HTS

  AstraZeneca has successfully integrated the TETRA 'Jellyfish' Reader onto the Velocity11 BioCel, and developed protocols to allow scheduling of CA2+ flux assays, utilizing VWorks software. The integration included exploitation of RS232 communication to act as a surrogate driver for third party peripherals, such as the Tecan PW384 plate washer, prior to the availability of a full Velocity11 driver. The results were comparable to that obtained with the RTS Thurnall Assay Platform automated FLIPR system, with data generated using multiple GPCR targets. Using an in-house visualization package, they have been able to demonstrate assay reproducibility on a plate-to-plate basis.

• Beckman Coulter, Inc. (Booth 227)
  www.beckmancoulter.com

  Speakers: Amy Yoder and Lynn Richard, Beckman Coulter, Inc.

  Improve Laboratory Processing Through Miniaturization and Submicroliter Dispensing

  Most laboratories are under pressure to improve throughput and decrease costs. An effective way to accomplish this is to reduce the reaction volume and employ high density plates, while maintaining dispensing accuracy and reagent efficacy (cells, enzymes, etc.).

  Beckman Coulter offers BioRAPTR submicroliter dispenser offers a versatile and elegant approach to achieve miniaturization. Application case studies will be presented on common laboratory processes such as amplication reactions and cell-based assays.

• BMG LABTECH (Booth 456)
  www.bmglabtech.com

  and

  Invitrogen (Booth 217)
  www.invitrogen.com

  Investigate Different Drug Screening Targets Using Fluorescence Assay Technologies From Invitrogren and Instrumentation From BMG LABTECH

  When screening drug targets with hundred of thousands of compounds, two key components need to be considered: 1) specific, yet adaptable assays to examine your drug target of choice; and 2) fast, sensitive and reliable instrumentation for detecting target-compound interactions. This joint workshop will detail these two aspects of drug screening through a collaborative effort. BMG LABTECH will describe its unique and highly successful PHERAstar Plus HTS microplate reader, and it will unveil its next generation PHERAstar FS microplate reader with Tandem Technology (and other novel features). While Invitrogen will showcase enabling assay platforms validated on these instruments for studying important cell signaling and membrane targets. Join us to discover what we have learned about these two key facets of drug screening.

• Eppendorf North America (Booth 551)
  www.ependorf.com

  epMotion 5075 TMX Improving Results in Automated Nucleic Acid Purification

  Nucleic acid preparation protocols from Macherey & Nagel , Promega, Invitrogen, 5 Prime, Invitek and SIGMA are available as ready to go Plug'n'Prep methods for the open liquid handling platform epMotion. By usage of the integrated mixing TMX mixing technology higher nucleic acid yields can be obtained in less time with less tip costs. Experimental examples samples will be provided for various samples types with Machery&Nagel's Nucleo Spin purification technology.

• IDBS (Booth 240)
  www.idbs.com

  Compound to Candidate — A Complete Drug Discovery Data Management Solution

  This workshop will show IDBS solutions working together to track drug discovery data from early development of a compound through screening through later stage discovery. The workshop will include demonstrations of how IDBS solutions are used for managing the data, creating the notebook entries in an ELN, running the queries, and generating the reports at various stages in the process. Not only are the various product suites developed for specific workflows, they are integrated to work together and have many extension points and APIs to easily integrate into other corporate systems and databases already in place.

• Labcyte (Booth 370)
  www.labcyte.com Speaker: Rodney Bednar, Merck

  Compound Management Automation and Workflow to Facilitate Real Time Lead Identification

  Walk-up robotic automation has become essential for the rapid preparation of assay-ready plates on demand. Bednar will describe how they at Merck in the Facility for Automation and Screening Technology (FAST) have automated low-volume liquid handling, especially in the area of full dose-titration analysis where they have been able to reduce sample usage to less than 500 nL. He will discuss the strategies and workflows they have employed to best facilitate real-time lead identification.

• Symyx Technologies (Booth 219)
  www.symyx.com

  Speaker: Speaker: Cheryl Lund

  Analytical Notebooks: Fast Entry. Easily Locate and Share Notebook Information

  Finally, an electronic laboratory notebook that serves the specific needs of analytical chemists while enhancing your collaboration with colleagues. Join our discussion and demonstration to learn how Symyx Notebook gives you the freedom to experiment. Find out how to:

  • Plan, execute and record analytical experiments
  • Learn from other researcher's experiments
  • Annotate chromatograms and spectra—and fully search annotations
  • Integrate with systems such as balances, LIMS, CDS, and SDMS for more efficient data collection
  • Save time, reduce mistakes and ease compliance burdens
  • Easily develop new methods

• Tecan (Booth 205)
  www.tecan.com/components

  Accelerating Instrument Development Using Modular OEM Components of Tomorrow. Today!

  Tecan with its Cavro® brand of OEM components has been a pioneer in providing innovative and reliable liquid handling solutions for instrument designers in almost any life science and clinical application. We are particularly strong with providing developers a comprehensive hardware and software infrastructure of liquid handling components that can be used throughout the entire design process to accelerate the development of a wide range of applications. Tecan will present some new and unique technologies that will enable developers to get a head start in projects and shorten time to market.

  Our workshop will show how to improve development efficiency and get a head-start on the next development project when using a comprehensive infrastructure of modular Tecan Cavro branded OEM robotic components, syringe pumps and accessories. Our products are designed with ease of integration and reliability as key design criteria and built on rich experience in liquid handling and automation.

  Tecan and Cavro are registered trademarks of Tecan Group Ltd., Männedorf, Switzerland.

  © 2008, Tecan Trading AG, Switzerland, all rights reserved.

• Thermo Scientific (Booth 405)
  www.thermoscientific.com

  Speakers: Dongyu Sun*, TszHang Kenneth To, Nathan Bays, Ilona Kariv, Merck Research Laboratories

  Assay Miniaturization and Optimization Using the Multidrop Combi nL Low Volume Liquid Handling Device

  Robust and reliable low nanoliter liquid dispensing is critical for assay miniaturization and optimization. This study will present evaluation data for the Multidrop Combi nL (Thermo Fisher Scientific, 01620 Vantaa, Finland), capable of dispensing liquid volumes in the range between 50 nL and 40 µL. The results demonstrate that acceptable accuracy and precision of this instrument can be achieved at the lowest specified volume for aqueous solutions dispensing. To test extended Multidrop Combi nL capabilities, we also implemented a design of experiment (DOE) statistical approach for 1536-well plate enzymatic assay optimization. This case study highlights advantages and limitations of this device, and demonstrates that this platform is suitable for assay development and screening of miniaturized plate formats.

• UNIConnect (Booth 364)
  www.uniconnect.com

  An Accelerator or an Anchor to Your Organization?

  To find the right LIMS, look beyond conventional LIMS to find:

  1. A System that Fits — Both now and in the future
  2. Fast Implementations — Not months of effort with no end in sight
  3. Complex Processes Management — Harness your unique competencies

  To win in these challenging times your lab needs the best technology to support your best efforts. This workshop demonstrates software that empowers labs to implement perfectly fitting systems — on-schedule and on-budget. We will build an example to show how UNIConnect quickly responds to changing requirements. Shape your future with lab software that is beyond conventional LIMS.

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

• Beckman Coulter, Inc. (Booth 227)
  www.beckmancoulter.com

  Speakers: Louis Cheung, Peter Harms, Christina Petraglia, Martin Gawlitzek
  Late Stage Cell Culture, Process Research and Development
  Genentech, Inc.

  Development of an Automated High-Throughput System for Cell Culture Process Development

  Cell culture process development is currently performed at different scales of shake flasks as well as bioreactors. The shake flask or bioreactor process generates very limited data per experiment and is time consuming. The current process is not ergonomic due to repetitive pipetting and sampling of the shake flasks or bioreactors. Therefore, we developed an automated high-throughput system capable of handling suspension cell cultures to improve efficiency of cell culture process development. The Biomek™ FX, a high-throughput liquid handling system, was modified and integrated to prepare reagents and media in TubeSpin, a 50-mL conical tube that is utilized as a suspension cell culture vessel. High-throughput osmolality and pH measuring technologies were developed and integrated with the Biomek™ FX liquid handling system for automatic osmolality and pH adjustment during media preparation. The Quanta SC MPL, an automated high-throughput flow cytometer, was employed to monitor viable cell density, viability, as well as cell cycle profiles. Fluorescence-based assays were developed to measure cell culture metabolites such as glucose and lactate. Daily monitoring of the above mentioned parameters was carried out to expand process knowledge. The automated high-throughput system is designed to set up and handle 384 TubeSpin per experiment that delivers at least ten times higher throughput than the conventional shake flask system. The technology can also be applied towards the improvement of clone screening, media optimization, as well as process optimization throughputs.

• Corning Incorporated (Booth 337)
  www.corning.com/lifesciences

  High-Throughput, Label-Free Biochemical and Cell Assays

  By combining optical biosensor technology with a 384-well microplate format, the Corning® Epic® System enables the non-invasive, label-free observation of biochemical and cellular interactions. This tutorial will describe the principle of operation of the System and highlight the utility of the Epic System in performing high-throughput cell-based and direct bind biochemical assays. Case studies will be presented showing whole cell ion channel, GPCR, and viral infection assays; and direct bind enzymatic and antibody profiling assays.

• IDBS (Booth 240)
  www.idbs.com

  Advances in HCS Data Management

  With HCS activities in the industry ramping-up and promising more and better quality data for your dollar, what better way to deal with these multi-parametric data than ActivityBase XE.

  This workshop will show ID Business Solution's ActivityBase XE and how it can enable your data analysis and decision support workflows in the area of High Content Screening. See how ActivityBase XE is able to cover multiple assay types, from multiplex to kinetics to image based data. ActivityBase XE integration capability with HCS instrument platforms will be demonstrated during this session.

• Mettler-Toledo AG (Booth 151)
  www.mt.com

  For Safe, Simple and Economical Sample Preparation — Quantos Automated Dosing

  The first step in sample preparation in the pharmaceutical analytical laboratory is weighing in highly potent hazardous substances, precisely and correctly by hand with a spatula. The lab technician's task is to accurately dose mg amounts without spillage and weigh them correctly. Repeated opening of the compound increases the risk of contamination of both personnel and lab environment.

  METTLER TOLEDO revolutionizes this slow, unsafe and expensive process -with their automated powder dosing system, QUANTOS.

  Using intelligent disposable dosing heads the QUANTOS doses 1-250mg of sample into different tare containers, at the touch of a button within a closed system - rapidly, safely and economically. The RFID-Chip integrated in the dosing head stores all information in a secure and traceable way. Losses of valuable substances through spilling or repetitions due to incorrect weighing are no longer necessary.

  QUANTOS enables significant process optimizations and therefore not only allows ergonomical improvements, but also increases the productivity substantially.

  Several laboratories already profit from QUANTOS in their daily work. During the workshop we will take the chance to present and discuss various different applications and case studies.

• PerkinElmer (Booth 427)
  www.perkinelmer.com

  Automating AlphaLISA With JANUS PLUS Two New Detection Platforms From PerkinElmer

  Learn about the no-wash, user-friendly AlphaLISA® technology and how easily you can automate your assay with the JANUS® Automated Workstation! JANUS® offers flexible system sizes, configurations and integration capabilities for full walk-away AlphaLISA assay automation to increase your productivity and throughput.

  PLUS:

  • Learn about the capabilities of our newest Multilabel Detection platform for AlphaLISA / AlphaScreen technology, at an affordable price for any lab budget.
  • Hear more about the newest assay development tool for flash luminescence based dual luciferase and aequorin assays!

• Promega (Booth 363)
  www.promega.com

• Labcyte, Inc. (Booth 370)
  www.labcyte.com

• BMG LABTECH (Booth 456)
  www.bmglabtech.com

  Automated GPCR Signaling Studies in 1536-Well Format Using the Non-Lytic Live-Cell GloSensor camp Assay Technology

  Assays require tight coordination of biochemistry with precise liquid handling coupled with sensitive detection. BMG LABTECH, Labcyte and Promega show how their technologies work together to maximize results. G protein-coupled receptors are popular targets in drug discovery. A well-designed assay can speed the discovery of novel drug candidates. The Promega® GloSensor™ cAMP assay monitors cAMP production in live cells in response to test compounds. Using Labcyte® Echo® and Deerac™ liquid handlers and measuring results with BMG Labtech readers, compounds are screened in 1536-well format for effects on GPCRs. Implementing such high-throughput miniaturized assays provides cost-effective screening to identify GPCR modulators.

• RTS Life Science (Booth 557) and FluidX (Booth 642)
  www.rtsgroup.com   www.fluidx.co.uk

  Do You Know What You are Screening? Techniques and Solutions to Reduce the Impact of Variable Sample Quality

  As Compound Management and HTS Groups strive to improve efficiencies and reduce costs, consistent sample quality continues to increase in importance. Many factors have an impact: environment, temperature, solubility, frequency of access, sealing methodologies etc. As a result, the ability to protect samples from degradation and determine their volume and concentration in storage is invaluable in determining the quality of any generated output.

  Companies are seeking new solutions and methodologies to improve their understanding of the quality of their stored samples. This workshop will discuss the issues and present an overview of some new techniques and products. A case study describing how a vision system routinely and accurately audits tubes to calculate sample volumes and identify particulate matter will also be presented.