Robotic Liquid Handler and Microplate Analyzer System

描述（由申请人提供）：化学生物学（或化学基因组学）这门不断发展的学科为研究人员提供了一套新的工具和方法来探索基本的生物学和遗传学问题。该策略使用小分子文库（例如，天然化合物、适体或组合化学产物）和高通量筛选来推进对生物途径的理解，以识别作为个体基因产物、途径或细胞表型的正或负调节因子的化合物。此外，长期以来主要只在制药和生物技术公司范围内从事的发育治疗学领域正在学术部门内出现，这在很大程度上是由于继续将疾病按基因划分为可进行目标治疗的亚组，但从市场的角度来看，这些亚组太小，无法吸引营利性公司的兴趣。虽然这种对小市场疾病目标群体的识别是新的和持续的，这在很大程度上是由于人类基因组的努力，但阻碍营利的经济障碍阻碍了对儿童恶性肿瘤等“孤儿疾病”以及许多传染病等“第三世界疾病”的新疗法的开发，这是一个长期存在的问题。液体处理机器人和微孔板读取器是本应用程序的主题，是一个多机构倡议的一部分，涉及位于田纳西州孟菲斯地区的五家机构（St. Jude儿童研究医院、田纳西大学、健康科学中心、密西西比大学国家天然产物研究中心、孟菲斯大学和基督教兄弟大学）。旨在建立健全的化学生物学和发育治疗学项目，以帮助解决基本的生物学问题，并改善疾病的治疗，特别是那些通常被制药和生物技术所忽视的疾病。该计划涉及20多名具有不同专业领域的研究人员，包括分子和细胞本体论、传染病和药物化学等，其中大多数人获得一项或多项NIH资助来支持他们的研究，并与位于五个参与机构的一名或多名其他研究人员进行多学科合作项目。这项研究倡议的一个组成部分还包括建立一个高通量筛选（HTS）核心设施，该设施将设在圣犹达，供所有五个当地机构的合格研究人员使用，以促进他们开发用于基础研究和可能的治疗应用的小分子，特别是针对孤儿病靶点。本申请中所要求的液体处理机器人和微孔板读取器将有助于满足孟菲斯地区对HTS能力的显著需求——正如本文件中包含的多个研究者项目描述所例证的那样——通过帮助使当地HTS核心设施成为现实。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The evolving discipline of Chemical Biology (or Chemical Genomics) has empowered investigators with a new set of tools and approaches to probe basic biological and genetic questions. This strategy uses libraries of small molecules (e.g., natural compounds, aptamers, or the products of combinatorial chemistry) and high-throughput screening to advance understanding of biological pathways to identify compounds that act as positive or negative regulators of individual gene products, pathways or cellular phenotypes. In addition, the field of Developmental Therapeutics, long mainly pursued only within the context of pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, is emerging within the academic sector, in large part due to the continued genetic division of diseases into subsets amenable to targeted therapies but that are too small from a market standpoint to attract the interest of for-profits. While this identification of small-market disease target groups is new and continuing, occurring in large part due to the human genome effort, the economic blocks to for-profits that have precluded the development of new therapies for "orphan diseases" such as the pediatric malignancies, as well as "Third World Diseases" like many of the infectious diseases, has been a longstanding problem. The liquid-handling robot and microplate reader that are the subject of this application are requested as part of a multi-institutional initiative, involving five institutions (St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, The University of Tennessee, Health Science Center, the National Center for Natural Products Research at the University of Mississippi, the University of Memphis, and Christian Brothers University) located in the Memphis, TN area, that seeks to establish robust Chemical Biology and Developmental Therapeutics programs to help address basic biological questions and to improve the therapy of disease, especially those diseases typically ignored by pharma and biotech. This initiative involves more than 20 investigators with varied areas of expertise, including molecular and cellular ontology, the infectious diseases, and medicinal chemistry, among others - most of whom have one or multiple NIH grants to support their studies, and are engaged in multi-disciplinary collaborative projects with one or more other investigators located at the five participating institutions. A component of this research initiative also includes the establishment of a high throughput screening (HTS) core facility to be based at St. Jude, which will be available to qualified investigators at all five local institutions to facilitate their efforts to develop small molecules for both basic research and possible therapeutic applications, especially for orphan disease targets. The liquid-handling robot and microplate reader requested in this application will help to meet the marked demand for HTS capabilities in the Memphis region - as is exemplified by the multiple investigator project descriptions that comprise this document - by helping to make a local HTS core facility a reality.