AUTOSCREEN - A novel platform concept for automated high throughput and high end microscopy

High-performance microscope systems are typically bulky, expensive research instruments requiring highly skilled personnel. The more sophisticated imaging modes they provide (i.e. the higher the content), the lower gets their throughput. On the other hand, screening platforms optimized for automated high-throughput, are usually reduced to the most fundamental imaging modes and thus exhibit rather limited performance capabilities. Within the AUTOSCREEN project we have tried to overcome this mutual exclusivity by pursuing several pathways leading to a highly compact, fast and automated microscope reader, which integrates high-end imaging modes previously found in high-end research instruments only. The resulting 3D microscopy screening platform is meant to set a new gold standard towards compact, low-cost high-throughput instruments and constitute a major break-through for the life sciences, both in an academic and an industrial environment.