BIOCIUS Life Sciences

Mayr and Bojanic’s noteworthy recent article gives a descriptive history of HTS, starting with its origins and detailing the path through which it has evolved over the past decade and a half to encompass multiple steps such as the primary, counter, and validation screens that are currently familiar.  The authors describe how researchers’ focus has shifted over time from a brute-force effort at simply increasing throughput to a more narrow approach geared toward achieving better data on fewer compounds by employing in silico tools, focused libraries, and fragment-based screens.  They go on to forecast future alterations in the target classes of major interest as well as both the screen design and infrastructure used by companies to meet their pressing need to acquire high quality data on a large number of compounds rapidly and with minimal artifacts, such that those compounds with greatest promise of becoming viable drugs are identified as quickly and efficiently as possible.  I, for one, am certainly looking forward to discovering how accurate the authors’ predictions turn out to be as the field continues to advance!