SLAS Technology

Rapid advancement in fluorescence and luminescence imaging technology is encouraging cell biologists to develop high-throughput assays for intracellular detection of bioactive small molecules, protein conformational changes, protein localization and dynamics, and measurement of protein—protein interactions in real time at the level of single living cells with high spatial and temporal resolution. In this report, we summarize the development of genetically encoded fluorescent and bioluminescent probes to study various molecular events in live cells and animals for potential drug candidates against different diseases.

Most of the scheduling software and instrument integration frameworks are written in Visual Basic, C/C++, or the LabView programming environment. A lot of these frameworks are proprietary tools of instrument vendors and are used by these companies during system integration of their instruments. In addition to the closed architecture of these products, the scheduler choice is very limited. ReTiSoft Inc. has created a suite of software products that address these problems.

In this article we would like to introduce ReTiSoft's open-architecture framework for instrument integration, a hybrid scheduler (static and dynamic) and a Web-enabled interface to the automated system. In addition to ReTiSoft's integration framework (Genera) and the hybrid-scheduling software (Supra), we recently developed a Web-enabled application that allows scientists to log onto the automated system remotely, set up and run assays, examine and analyze the data produced during the experiment. The software is called DataPilot and is comprised of a high-performance database engine and the Apache Web server.

In unison with Genera's and Supra's open-architecture approach, DataPilot can be modified and customized by system integrators to suit their specific application needs. The application serves as a data repository and adheres to guidelines presented by the Code of Federal Regulations for electronic records and electronic signatures; the guidelines are known as 21 CFR Part 11.

This article provides an architectural overview of our software products and justifies its merits in comparison to other technologies commonly used in laboratories. We describe our Genera integration framework, give an overview of our scheduling algorithms, describe a Web-enabled data-tracking software and the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA assay), and describe different methods of automated system validation using our software. We also offer some conclusions.