Aurora Biosciences Gets U.S. Patent for Ultra High Throughput System

Aurora Biosciences Corp. has announced the issuance of U.S. Patent Number 5,985,214 entitled "Systems and Methods for Rapidly Identifying Useful Chemicals in Liquid Samples", which is solely owned by Aurora. The patent includes claims to certain devices capable of processing over 100,000 compounds per day. It also encompasses screening in Aurora's high density NanoWell Assay Plate (3,456 wells per plate), as well as commercially available lower density formats.

The technology covered in this patent relates to Aurora's core drug discovery software and instrumentation and includes thirty claims, particularly to devices that use automated and integrated workstations for identifying or profiling lead compounds. Aurora's UHTSS Platform includes automated workstations that are programmably controlled by an advanced adaptive control system to maximize throughput, minimize processing times and handle miniaturized formats. Aurora's system is supported by data analysis and management software that has been internally developed by Aurora's software group.

"We view drug discovery as an industrial process involving many thousands of precise manipulations. Aurora's software and instrumentation is designed to automate and integrate multiple processes required for modern drug discovery such as compound library management, replication and distribution, development and performance of different assay protocols, and data collection and management," said John Mendlein, J.D., Ph.D., Aurora's senior vice president, Intellectual Property, and chief knowledge officer. "Aurora's patented high-throughput miniaturized drug discovery technology platform, the UHTSS Platform, represents a fundamental advance over existing methods of compound library management and screening by allowing substantial increases in screening speed and efficiency while enabling reductions in the reagents and consumables utilized in high throughput screening."

Aurora's UHTSS Platform incorporates a wide array of expertise and technologies and is comprised of three modules. Module One is the compound storage and retrieval unit of the system, capable of storing more than 1,000,000 test compounds and able to retrieve and prepare for testing more than 100,000 samples in a 24-hour period. Module Two consists of eight separate subsystems that prepare the compounds and other assay reagents for testing using state-of-the-art microfluidics and precision robotics to dispense them into Aurora's proprietary NanoWell Assay Plates, conducting the assays in miniaturized formats and reading the results. This module has been installed and accepted by one of Aurora's UHTSS syndicate collaborators and has been delivered to a second. The third and final module of the UHTSS Platform includes the system control software which integrates all of the modules under central supervisory control. This part of the system also incorporates sophisticated data acquisition and analysis software capable of analyzing, storing and integrating data from ultra-high throughput screening efforts and other sources in a master database.

Aurora's own UHTSS Platform plans to start integrated operation by the end of 1999 and the Company expects to bring its customers' UHTSS systems on-line in separate stages beginning in the first half of 2000 through the first half of 2001.

Edited by Bruce A. Bennett