A new generation of instruments for rapidly screening potential pharmaceutical drugs is the goal of a new research partnership. Axon develops instrumentation and software for rapid, accurate protein and DNA analysis. They are currently developing CellPix, a system for rapidly screening pharmaceutical drugs. Dr. Andy Blatz, Axon's Director of Cell Based Screening Technology, says that researchers looking for new drugs must screen them for their effects on human and animal cells. The CellPix system works by capturing and analysing images of cells using chemical fluorescence to mark cellular features.
Image analysis is all about extracting meaningful data from images.
The image analysis specifications of the CellPix system are very demanding. The CellPix system will be used for drug discovery based on measurements of a range of cellular characteristics including cell shape, neurite outgrowth, changes in adhesion and other morphological changes. CellPix will assist the drug discovery industry to develop new tests to be applied to potential drugs and to apply them as a higher-throughput screening system. Axon's Javelin is an advanced database system for managing and interpreting data from the DNA microarrays that are widely used in gene mapping work. Axon Instruments, Inc., located in Foster City, California, and founded in 1984, produces a broad spectrum of instrumentation and software for genomics and high throughput screening.