High content screening : a powerful approach to systems cell biology and drug discovery

High Content Screening (HCS) has emerged as a powerful platform technology that is being used to “industrialize” cell biology; especially in academic research and drug discovery. Information on the distribution, in time and space, as well as the activity of cellular constituents is helping to define the functions of proteins and other critical cellular components. The ability of these methods to be automated and run at high throughput will revolutionize the analysis of protein function using cell biology. Keywords: cells; cellomics; high content screening; fluorescence; reagents; microscopy; imaging and informatics