Photo: Courtesy of Amersham Biosciences
AMERSHAM BIOSCIENCE's IN Cell Analyzer system

Drug discovery frequently involves the screening of large numbers of candidate compounds, and any technology that helps researchers weed out the less-promising contenders can potentially save pharmaceutical companies a great deal of time and money. But studying the subcellular effects of drugs has proven to be something of a drug-discovery bottleneck, as these assays are largely done in a nonautomated, or minimally automated, manner.

Rachel Panther, bioassays marketing director for Amersham Biosciences, Piscataway, NJ, explains, "It largely means that [these assays] are done fairly late in the process of drug discovery. There's a lot of belief that by doing that earlier, you can develop a much deeper understanding of the function of these drugs and also some of the less-desirable effects that they may be causing."

To help streamline this process, Amersham Biosciences has introduced two microscope...