September 9, 2024
Quality control, best practices and storage and distribution excellence are but a few phrases used to describe the painstaking art of sample management. Learn how it all comes together as members share with SLAS Electronic Laboratory Neighborhood...
How does compound management add value to scientific project plans?
“In my view, the compound management team is a key contributor to the success of scientific projects by delivering a strong added value on the project management,” says Olivier Casamitjana, executive vice president, global sample management head, Evotec France, Campus Curie, (Toulouse, France), and co-chair of the SLAS 2024 Sample Management Symposium. To be held October 16-17, 2024, the symposium will be hosted on Evotec’s Campus Curie in southwestern France – home of more than 700 dedicated scientists and a facility that adeptly oversees a portfolio of approximately 20 integrated drug discovery projects, all in parallel execution.
“The added value of the compound management team is composed of strong elements such as a robust and standard compound flow, qualified processes from the compound reception to the delivery to the project team, a laboratory information management system (LIMS) and data management process aligned to the project’s need. Other aspects include a high-quality approach and operational excellence mindset, an optimized turnaround time and an expert team to run and manage projects,” he continues.
“All these elements contribute directly to the project’s success and make the compound management team a unique and mandatory element to bring added value on the research activities – but their work is not always visible!”
“In many projects it is important to speak each other’s language, and to understand the potential differences in requirements and culture," comments Tamara Baptist, sales manager Europe for Specs, part of eMolecules, Inc., (Zoetermeer, The Netherlands). “It is this exact role that compound management can play in a variety of different scientific projects and makes it such a crucial stakeholder.
“There are multiple examples of high-throughput screening (HTS) initiatives, involving thousands of compounds, where the compound management department oversees and executes on the vital tasks of gathering, reformatting and distributing compounds in such a way that the end plates are directly ready for screening.
“At Specs, we have a long history of providing compound management services from large pharmaceutical companies to smaller research institutes and biotech, all under strict quality procedures to guarantee a high-level of support. Where compounds can be stored for multiple years in a row and this may look like a static process, innovation is still at the heart of what we do. The latest developments in liquid handling reformatting on a nano scale amazes me still every day, and I am thankful that I can bring some of that experience to my role as co-chair of the innovation track at the symposium.
“Having spent many years in the lab, I have a good understanding of the challenges lab technicians and scientists face in general and specifically how this can affect reliable and innovative compound management. Translating this experience – combined with a healthy dose of Dutch passion – drives me every day to ensure access to the best techniques and equipment that can be provided to our partners, as well as to support those who can potentially make the so-needed, new and significant scientific discoveries.”
“At the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS; Bethesda, MD), the compound management group serves all NCATS scientists with requests related to small molecule storage, reformatting and quality control,” says Kelli M. Wilson, Ph.D., director of the Compound Management group in the Information Technology and Research Branch, Research Services Core, within NCATS’ Division of Preclinical Innovation (DPI), where she focuses on collaboration with NCATS scientists who require compounds for screening and other translational science projects. Wilson is also a member of the symposium’s planning committee.
“We average 2,300 requests completed per year since 2011, so our services are highly in demand,” Wilson comments. One success story, in which her group added value to scientific project plans, involved drug combination screening.
“In 2011, a scientist at NCATS who was studying oncology asked the compound management group to dispense two compounds per well into plates so that novel drug combinations could be explored in large scale. Prior to this, the compound management group had never plated two compounds per well for any screen," Wilson recounts about the project.
“The previous director of the compound management group worked to get an acoustic dispenser in house as well as a small robotic platform to dispense the drug combinations. The team also developed custom software within the compound management group to take a file with the desired drug combinations and produce files that the acoustic dispenser could use to create the desired layout. This effort was published, and the first author is none other than the current SLAS Scientific Director Lesley Mathews, Ph.D.
“The platform still exists at NCATS and has been significantly improved over time,” Wilson concludes. “To date, NCATS has screened over 42 million drug combinations and data from this platform has supported clinical trials for novel drug combinations for rare diseases.”
"As an external IT provider for compound management professionals, I would say that the adaptability and flexibility of compound management departments add value to scientific projects in the sense that they provide efficient support to the scientifics used in life sciences experiments," comments Stephanie Muzzarelli, sample logistic team lead for wega IT at wega Informatik AG (Basel, Switzerland). Muzzarelli also is a member of the symposium’s planning committee.
Sidelines
Register Today! SLAS 2024 Sample Management Symposium, Oct. 16-17