In the pharmaceutical industry, screening drug candidates quickly at statistically powerful sample sizes enables efficient allocation of resources to new product development. There are a wide variety of drug screening assays complimenting the wide variety of different drug purposes and their mechanisms. For example, protein quantification assays are used to assess drugs designed to induce protein secretions from cells and look for protein-protein interactions; virus quantification assays are critical to assess efficacy of anti-viral drug candidates; and cytotoxicity assays evaluate cell viability after exposure to potential cancer therapeutic agents.

High-throughput technologies capable of analyzing precious patient samples with the flexibility to support a variety of assays are crucial to the everyday work of drug discovery researchers. High-throughput flow cytometers like the Cytek Aurora and Cytek Northern Lights equipped with plate loader option enable researchers to successfully conduct these drug screening assays in their search for new compounds and cell function regulators.

Check out these publications to learn more about the role of flow cytometry in drug discovery research and learn how Cytek Aurora and Cytek Northern Lights can enable drug discovery workflows in your lab.