Discuss trends in high-throughput technology

June 28, 2000

Scientists discuss the advantages and limitations of high-throughput technology and what advances we can expect in the future.

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BioOnline: Welcome to this evening's chat with Bio Online! The use of high-throughput technology is transforming the process of scientific discovery and drug development. High-throughput technologies are used to analyze gene and protein expression, predict protein structures, define protein-protein interactions and screen chemical libraries, to name a few applications. Tonight, we will discuss the advantages and limitations of high-throughput technology and what advances we can expect in the future.

Craig Muir: Hello. I'm Craig Muir, and I'll be moderating our chat about high-throughput technology for the next hour. We are fortunate to have a panel of experts with us, from both academia and industry, to provide their perspective on trends in high-throughput technology and how they are being used to further our understanding of basic biology and advance the process of drug discovery. Before I introduce our panelists, I would like to tell you a bit about myself. I am the Vice President of Process Technology at Millennium Pharmaceuticals. During the past six years I have helped Millennium establish high-throughput capabilities in DNA sequencing, genotyping, transcript profiling, phage display and a variety of other modern biotechnology processes. The process systems are developed by combining robotics, automation components, and software and method adaptations. Prior to joining Millennium I developed high-throughput automation systems at Tularik, Genentech and the University of Vermont. Now, I would like to introduce our panelists. This evening, we are very fortunate to have - Mike Knapp, Ph.D., Founder and Vice President of Science and Technology, Caliper Technologies, Wayne Hendrickson, Ph.D., The Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics, Columbia University and Marc Vidal, Ph.D., Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School. I would like to have each of our distinguished guests comment and make introductory remarks about their background and interest in this field.

Mike Knapp: I'm Vice President of Science and Technology and head of corporate development at Caliper. I came to Caliper from the world of genetics where it became very obvious that the need for massive experimentation at affordable costs was upon us given the massive variation that exists among humans. But what is obvious is that the high-throughput technologies, which were first employed in genomics experiments, needed to be expanded outside of the world of nucleic acids analysis. Our company is working on high-throughput technologics using chip-based micro-fluidics.

Wayne Hendrickson: All of the specifics of where I am have been given, so I will say I'm a protein crystallographer, and I am involved in both the developments of methods for this work and in applying the technology to biological molecules of interest. What brings me to this particular panel, I think, is that one of the consequences of this work is being felt in a new field called structural genomics.

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