The biochemistry department carries out a number of tasks relating to compound screening, in vitro drug characterization, and quantification of physiological markers of disease and drug activity. These tasks include assay development and High Throughput Screening (HTS), maintenance of compound libraries, performance of immunological tests and protein purification.

Simple biochemical assays, such as radioligand binding assays or protease assays, are crucial tools for drug discovery. The drug targets to be assayed are proteins that are purified or enriched from natural or recombinant sources. The screening assays are developed in microtiter plates, the preferred assay format for HTS. Automated HTS allows testing of tens of thousands of chemical compounds per day for their effect on the activity of a drug target. The test compounds are stored (in microtiter plates) in a custom-made MicroPlate Storage System, which is physically linked to the HTS system. This proprietary setup provides instant access to every compound available for screening at Actelion.

Immunological assays provide sensitive tools to quantify proteins or signaling molecules in man and animal models. Such assays are used to identify and quantify molecules whose levels differ in healthy and diseased individuals. Quantification of such disease markers allows one to monitor the severity of a disease, as well as drug mediated improvements of the disease state.

High Throughput Screening at Actelion (HTS)

Actelion relies on a combination of custom-made and commercial  components for the HTS system. A plate storage and retrieval system (MPSS) is integrated by a robotic arm with 96- and 384-well liquid handling, 8-channel pipetting, dispensing, plate washing and other functional units.

Custom-made MicroPlate Storage System (MPSS)

The MicroPlate Storage System (MPSS) is a proprietary system co-developed with an engineering firm according to specifications from Actelion. The system stores almost 2000 microtiter plates with a capacity of more than 650,000 compounds under controlled atmospheric conditions. A physical link between the MPSS and the HTS system allows random access to any microtiter plate in the MPSS and delivery to the deck of the liquid handler within 15 seconds.