The BioMAP® Platform of Primary Human Cell Systems for Phenotypic Drug Discovery and Development – Lessons Learned

The BioMAP® Platform of Primary Human Cell Systems for Phenotypic Drug Discovery and Development – Lessons Learned
Year:
2013

Presentation given on 28 October 2013 at CHI's Fast Congress on Phenotypic Drug Discovery, Cambridge, MA

Abstract
Phenotypic drug discovery (PDD) is a target agonistic approach using biological systems to screen for new drugs.  Primary human cells are useful for PDD as they can be incorporated into high throughput assays but are more physiologically relevant than cell lines.   BioMAP systems, culture models of tissue and disease biology, use primary human cell types in complex activation settings and co-culture formats.  We have developed a useful method for assigning mechanism class to phenotypic drug discovery hits by using activity signatures from a panel of BioMAP systems.  For this, a reference data set of selective, well-characterized compounds was used to build predictive models for 28 mechanism classes using machine learning.  The performance and application of these predictive models in a decision scheme for triaging phenotypic screening hits will be described. Early identification of undesirable mechanisms will help focus resources on the most promising leads.