Screening Hub

The Screening Hub focusses on developing tailor-made technology solutions for novel, in vivo screening in zebrafish and medaka, and on high-throughput high-content cell screens particularly based on imaging.

Large scale screening requires automation to increase efficiency and minimize potential sources of  variability. Therefore, this Hub coordinates the multiple technology developments required for a full automation of  each step of the screening process. This encompasses engineering and automation, biological assay design, chemical library provision and management, data transfer, storage and analysis. For example, our recent development and integration of a dedicated fish sorter, liquid handling robots, fully automated microscopes and an automated analysis infrastructure allow the automation and remote control of the entire screening process.  This automated pipeline is tailored to the demands of individual screens. In this regard, the increasing demand for screening by internal and external users of the EZRC will  further foster our technology developments

Miniaturisation is a key strategy for reducing the costs of screening. To this end, capitalising on our expertise in microengineering and polymers, a miniaturized droplet microarray has been developed that allows the simultaneous exposure of cells or even  fish embryos to thousands of  compounds in parallel (e.g. small molecules or siRNA) on a single glass slide.

The Screening Hub complements its expertise with input from chemistry  (ComPlat)  and  IT (Bioinformatics platform).