ABSTRACT
Image-based high content screening (HCS) is rapidly gaining recognition as the future of drug discovery. The ability to screen vast amounts of possible therapeutic agents in a relatively short time, while obtaining various levels of information about each target cell’s biology, has an immense potential. Drug discovery and development is an extremely dynamic process and the challenges it involves are constantly changing. The introduction of advances in microscopy, like z-autofocus and x and y axes sample positioning has allowed the use of image-based analysis for high-throughput screenings. The possibility to obtain an almost unlimited quantity of biological parameters from a large number of cell images taken from multi-well plates poses a challenge for informatics and data management, which needs to be addressed by every HCS core facility. Drug discovery is driven by the need to add medical value while concomitantly limiting the costs for the pharmaceutical industry.
