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Assay development: an increasingly creative endeavour

Nature Reviews Drug Discovery volume 4, pages 956–957 (2005)Cite this article

In writing about what attributes and skills qualify a scientist for a successful career in assay development for drug discovery, one characteristic that rarely gets discussed — but which is essential for excelling in the role — is creativity. Creativity here means a scientist's ability to build an assay that is representative of the biological context of target function and meets the efficiency and accuracy demands of compound screening.

Creativity might seem like an odd characteristic to highlight given the often-stated emphasis on improving the efficiency of assay development cycles and lowering the per-well costs of running assays in screening. But although the mandate for cost containment in drug discovery is obvious, it seems counterproductive that improved efficiency should come at the expense of imaginative approaches to interrogating a molecular target, particularly in light of our growing appreciation of the regulatory complexity of conventional drug targets such as protein kinases, nuclear receptors and ion channels. Indeed, there is increasing movement in the field toward assays that better reflect disease biology, as opposed to the conventional 'target-in-isolation' strategy of many high-throughput screening campaigns.

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  1. Vice President of R&D, Invitrogen Drug Discovery Solutions, Invitrogen Life Technologies, University Research Park, 501 Charmany Drive, Madison, 53719-1236, Wisconsin, USA

    Brian Pollok

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  1. Brian Pollok
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Pollok, B. Assay development: an increasingly creative endeavour. Nat Rev Drug Discov 4, 956–957 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrd1916

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