Welcome to the High-throughput Screening FacilityHigh Throughput equipment pictures

The high-throughput screening facility in the School of Chemical Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) was created to assist researchers in developing and performing high-throughput screens of chemical libraries. Housed in Noyes Laboratory, the HTSF contains over 180,000 small molecules for screening. Through staff-assisted screening, users will have access to facility equipment including liquid handlers, plate readers and the small molecule libraries.

We provide services to both academic and industrial organizations

 

Services

The HTSF assists researchers in developing, optimizing and carrying out high-throughput screens of its chemical libraries.

Assay Development and Optimization

The HTSF can help develop biochemical or cell based assays using plate-based imaging, absorbance, fluorescence or luminescence, and alpha detection. The facility can also optimize your assay more suitable for high throughput screening and save reagent cost.

Potential targets for screens include enzymes, signal transduction pathways, gene regulatory proteins, micro RNAs, membrane receptors, transporters and other macromolecules important in cell growth, differentiation and signaling.

Provide Compound Libraries

We have chemical libraries containing approximately 180,000 small molecules in ~560 microtiter plates, which are easy to assay in 96- or 384- well plate formats. A small subset of plates or the entire library can be screened in your assay.

You are welcome to donate compounds to our chemical collections. See HTSF House Library and compound submission guidelines.

Worry-free Screening

The facility can carry out the whole screening for you. You only need to provide us your protein/DNA/cell and protocol. We will perform the screening and send the data back to you. The facility has robotic equipment for protein-based and cell-based assays using 96 or 384 well microplates. Optical readouts include imaging, absorbance, fluorescence intensity, fluorescence polarization, FRET, time-resolved fluorescence, luminescence and alpha technology.

Equipment Resources

The HTSF provides the equipment resources that your laboratory personnel can use to develop assays or carry out the screen. The facility has sophisticated robotic liquid handling equipments which can dispense nanoliter and microliter volumes into 96 and 384 well plates. The plate readers are all automated for screening stacks of microplates.

Data Analysis and Follow-up Assays

Assistance with data analysis can be done upon request. We can also help with hit validation and perform further testing of your macromolecule target and compounds such as dose-response curves, kinetic measurement, toxicity assays etc.

Mammalian Cell Culture

With its separate cell culture room, the facility can assist with cell-based screens and cell-based follow up assays. You can also use our cell culture space if you want to perform cell-base experiments but do not have cell culture area in your lab. (more cell culture information).