SLAS Discovery's October Special Collection "2nd Annual SBI2 High-Content Imaging and Informatics: Joint Special Collection with SBI2 & SLAS" Just Released

Oak Brook, IL (September 29, 2021) – The October edition of SLAS Discovery is a Special Collection highlighting the 2^nd Annual SBI2 High-Content Imaging and Informatics meeting. This joint Special Collection between SBI2 and SLAS features the cover article, “Advances in High-Content Imaging and Informatics: A Joint Special Collection with Society for Biomolecular Imaging and Informatics and SLAS” by Justin D. Boyd, Ph.D. (Vaxxinity) and Ann F. Hoffman (GlaxoSmithKline).

The article, “Development of an Image-Based HCS-Compatible Method for Endothelial Barrier Function Assessment” highlights the recent renascence of phenotypic drug discovery (PDD), catalyzed by its ability to identify first-in-class drugs and deliver results when the exact molecular mechanism is partially obscure. With acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) being a severe, life-threatening condition with a high mortality rate, no efficient pharmacological therapy for ARDS has been found, despite decades of laboratory and clinical studies.

An increase in endothelial permeability is the primary event in ARDS onset, causing the development of pulmonary edema that leads to respiratory failure. Currently, the detailed molecular mechanisms regulating endothelial permeability are poorly understood. The use of the PDD approach in the search for efficient ARDS treatment can be more productive than the classical target-based drug discovery (TDD), but its use requires new cell-based assay compatible with high-throughput and high-content screening (HTS/HCS). In the article, the authors report the development of a new plate-based image cytometry method to measure endothelial barrier function. The incorporation of image cytometry in combination with digital image analysis substantially decreases assay variability and increases the signal window, simultaneously allowing for rapid measurement of cell monolayer permeability and cytological analysis. The time-course of permeability increase in human pulmonary artery endothelial cells (HPAEC) in response to the thrombin and TNF-α treatment correlates with previously published data obtained by trans endothelial resistance measurements (TER). Furthermore, the proposed image cytometry method can be easily adapted for HTS/HCS applications.

This Special Collection includes five articles of original research:

• Identification of Potential Modulators of the RGS7/Gβ5/R7BP Complex
• Efficiency Improvements and Discovery of New Substrates for a SARS-CoV-2 Main Protease FRET Assay
• Probing the SAM Binding Site of SARS-CoV-2 Nsp14 In Vitro Using SAM Competitive Inhibitors Guides Developing Selective Bisubstrate Inhibitors
• Flexible Fitting of PROTAC Concentration–Response Curves with Changepoint Gaussian Processes
• High-Throughput Screening to Identify Small Molecules That Selectively Inhibit APOL1 Protein Level in Podocytes

Other articles in this issue include:

• The Drug Factory: Industrializing How New Drugs Are Found
• Development of an Image-Based HCS-Compatible Method for Endothelial Barrier Function Assessment
• Application of a High-Content Screening Assay Utilizing Primary Human Lung Fibroblasts to Identify Antifibrotic Drugs for Rapid Repurposing in COVID-19 Patients
• High-Throughput Imaging Assay for Drug Screening of 3D Prostate Cancer Organoids
• Evaluating Very Deep Convolutional Neural Networks for Nucleus Segmentation from Brightfield Cell Microscopy Images
• Automation of Organoid Cultures: Current Protocols and Applications
• ASCT1 and ASCT2: Brother and Sister?
• Operationalizing the Use of Biofabricated Tissue Models as Preclinical Screening Platforms for Drug Discovery and Development

Access to October’s SLAS Discovery issue is available at https://journals.sagepub.com/toc/jbxb/current

For more information about SLAS and its journals, visit https://www.slas.org/publications/slas-discovery/.

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SLAS (Society for Laboratory Automation and Screening) is an international professional society of academic, industry and government life sciences researchers and the developers and providers of laboratory automation technology. The SLAS mission is to bring together researchers in academia, industry and government to advance life sciences discovery and technology via education, knowledge exchange and global community building.

SLAS Discovery: Advancing the Science of Drug Discovery, 2019 Impact Factor 2.918. Editor-in-Chief Robert M. Campbell, Ph.D., Twentyeight-Seven Therapeutics, Boston, MA (USA).

SLAS Technology: Translating Life Sciences Innovation, 2019 Impact Factor 3.047. Editor-in-Chief Edward Kai-Hua Chow, Ph.D., National University of Singapore (Singapore).

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