ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews various novel technologies and approaches used in drug discovery at the Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical Research and Development, LLC. These approaches range from automation of behavioral testing in a proposed model of depression, to the search and identification of biomarkers to substantiate models, to the use of high-throughput screening robotics, and to the proposed novel paradigm for drug discovery known as functional informatics. The automation of behavioral testing is a necessary next step in constructing precisely defined central nervous system (CNS) diseases and pathophysiology models that will be repeatable between laboratories. Combinations of different complementary drug-discovery approaches, such as behavioral pharmacology, genomics, and proteomics with molecular imaging and microdialysis, open new perspectives for the discovery of new molecular biomarkers. These integrated approaches to CNS drug discovery also increase the required tests that need to be conducted in concert with automated sample processing and analysis.
