High-throughput screening (HTS)

Purpose for research

Automation of lab experiments has several advantages, for example:

1. You save time as a researcher
2. The quality of the experiments is increased and
3. You can easily scale-up the experiments.

Drug screening is our main focus, as there is still a high need to find new drugs and drug combinations for pediatric cancer.
In general, we perform and support the development, implementation and analysis of high-throughput and time-intensive assays. All experiments aim to enable accelerated identification and validation of new treatment options for pediatric cancer as well as identifying key genes and proteins underlying the disease processes.

The highly flexible HTS platform enables the performance of a variety of high-throughput assays (e.g. ELISA, cell viability, staining), screens using different types of molecules (e.g. drugs, antibodies, or siRNAs) and read-out methods (e.g. absorbance-, luminescence- or fluorescence-based detection). Read-out using FACS and microscopy can be performed at other core facilities.

Services and support

Equipment overview

The HTS facility consists of a state-of-the-art robotic system containing 15 different machines, the HTS team performs the control of the complex system. It is publicly available to all interested, although our main focus is facilitating research for pediatric cancer. As highlights, we have: