Hudson Robotics awarded NIH grant to develop HTS system for in vivo studies of zebrafish

Hudson Robotics, Inc., of Springfield, NJ, in cooperation with Johns Hopkins University, has recently been awarded an NIH grant to develop a commercially viable high-throughput screening (HTS) system for in vivo studies of zebrafish.

This system, termed the Automated Reporter Quantification in vivo (ARQiv) system, will bring high-throughput screening technology into the realm of in vivo studies of whole organisms. Whole-organism, phenotypic studies have heretofore been dependent upon image-based, high-content screening methodologies. These are much too slow to be used in preliminary drug-discovery screening studies. Typical HTS studies, confined to in vitro assays, too frequently identify leads that fail when subjected to necessary follow-on in vivo assays.

The objective of this grant will be to develop a cost-effective, fully automated system that will enable whole-organism, in vivo assays to be used as a primary screening method. This will eliminate the need for costly in vitro HTS assays followed by in vivo lead confirmation assays for many disease conditions for which a suitable in vivo assay can be developed.

Johns Hopkins researchers will provide the biological facilities and will perform assay design and testing using Hudson-supplied automation and microplate-handling hardware. Hudson will also develop the software to run the assays, process the results and provide the data necessary to optimize the screening methods.