Download PDF

TIBCO Software > Case Studies > TIBCO Spotfire® Analytics Software Helps to Identify and Develop Chemical Compounds In Academic Screening Facility

TIBCO Spotfire® Analytics Software Helps to Identify and Develop Chemical Compounds In Academic Screening Facility

Technology Category

Analytics & Modeling - Predictive Analytics
Application Infrastructure & Middleware - Data Visualization
Application Infrastructure & Middleware - Data Exchange & Integration

Applicable Industries

Life Sciences
Pharmaceuticals

Applicable Functions

Product Research & Development
Quality Assurance

Use Cases

Predictive Quality Analytics
Process Control & Optimization

Services

Data Science Services
System Integration

The Challenge

While the introduction of high-throughput techniques and lab automation helped to save a lot of time and manual effort to screen compounds, organizations lacked an easy to handle tool to perform accurate analyses that didn’t require a highly skilled analyst. Moreover, to cope with the tremendous amount of data, the scientists used to evaluate results on a per batch basis, skipping over information from the entire dataset thus missing opportunities to make better decisions. A large volume of complex data has to be assessed throughout the workflow to achieve the goal of delivering high-quality compounds. When the assay is developed and optimized it’s not only the activity or inactivity of a given target that has to be considered, batch size, reagent preparation, temperature, and signal stability need to be evaluated for a robust assay. Moreover, the quality of the screening campaign needs to be supervised to eradicate systematic errors, and hits have to be carefully selected to minimize false positives and false negatives in order to concentrate on the most promising candidates and make the most out of the available resources. Many data evaluation applications have difficulty dealing with the sheer volume of data, let alone handling the data’s multivariate and multiparametric nature.

About The Customer

The European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) Chemical Biology Core Facility is a joint venture between EMBL, the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), and Heidelberg University. This facility processes screening requests for small chemical molecules, utilizing a carefully chosen screening library of nearly 80,000 commercially available compounds. The aim is to address important biological questions by identifying and developing biotool compounds against novel targets, such as elucidating pathways or modes of action of binding partners. The facility evaluates screening requests for suitability and amenability, develops and optimizes assays, and conducts high-throughput screening campaigns. The facility's project managers report on project progress and decide on the next steps in collaboration with the customer.

The Solution

The TIBCO Spotfire enterprise analytics platform was selected by the facility to analyze and support the presentation of large data sets and allow scientists to accelerate the screening process with powerful and interactive visualizations. EMBL Senior Technical Officer Jan Selig was familiar with Spotfire software’s capabilities since he implemented it to perform microarray analysis prior to joining the Core Facility in 2004. Selig is now responsible for lab automation, data, and knowledge management. Spotfire analytics is used by the Core Facility project managers to make critical decisions at key points in the HTS workflow. The Spotfire server – tightly integrated with the Core Facility’s IBDS ActivityBase® data depository of chemical structures, plate content, and experiment information – collects all of the data needed at each stage of the workflow. Very little customization was required because Spotfire analytics is readily adaptable for all types of analysis. In the development stage, the analytics platform is used to evaluate the robustness of an assay and to choose optimum conditions for the large-scale experiment. In the pilot screen phase of the primary screening stage, Spotfire analytics is used to analyze the initial 4,000 substances. The pilot screen usually is done in duplicate. The two sets are used to verify the chosen conditions. Based on this initial screen, the facility decides whether or not to proceed with a full screen of all 80,000 substances in the Core Facility’s library.

Operational Impact

Spotfire analytics provides the Core Facility with a number of tangible benefits. The biggest benefit for the group is the ability to interactively analyze results in Spotfire and communicate these visualizations to customers much easier than with any other tool.
With Spotfire’s automated quality control, the facility is confident that their results are reliable. Spotfire software’s advanced statistical capabilities facilitate normalization and error correction, improving the positives selection by increasing the confirmation rate.
Spotfire software’s fast data retrieval and standard visualizations help to speed up the entire HTS process: project managers can evaluate the quality of a screening campaign minutes after the data upload, take appropriate actions when anything goes wrong, and decide whether or not to proceed.

Quantitative Benefit

The Chemical Biology Core Facility processes screening requests for small chemical molecules, utilizing a carefully chosen screening library of nearly 80,000 commercially available compounds.
In the pilot screen phase of the primary screening stage, Spotfire analytics is used to analyze the initial 4,000 substances.
The facility decides whether or not to proceed with a full screen of all 80,000 substances in the Core Facility’s library.