High-content screening (HCS) via high-resolution fluorescence cellular microscopy is a powerful technology for drug discovery and is currently being used in secondary screening and optimization of candidate compounds.
The aim of Cytoprint's proposed effort is to demonstrate advanced image analysis informatics tools to address critical bottlenecks in the deployment of HCS technology, which are the limited availability of assays and the lack of a reference database and tools for indexing, cataloging and searching cellular imagery data bases. ? ? Cytoprint converts cellular imagery into a numerical signature that can be ordered and indexed using an information-theoretic similarity metric. The numerical signature is obtained via concatenation of the results of several different image feature extraction operators applied to the imagery. Cytoprint has successfully demonstrated the ability of this approach to detect and differentiate between apoptotic and non-apoptotic compounds based upon signatures extracted from cellular imagery. The objective of our Phase I SBIR effort will be to refine and verify this analysis on a larger image set. The objective of a subsequent Phase II SBIR effort will be to expand the method to enable differentiation among several distinct biological effects.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS)
Type
Small Business Innovation Research Grants (SBIR) - Phase II (R44)
Project #
6R44NS045384-03
Application #
6731156
Study Section
Special Emphasis Panel (ZRG1-SSS-H (01))
Program Officer
Pancrazio, Joseph J
Project Start
2002-08-15
Project End
2005-03-31
Budget Start
2004-04-01
Budget End
2005-03-31
Support Year
3
Fiscal Year
2004
Total Cost
$245,565
Indirect Cost
Name
Atto Bioscience
Department
Type
DUNS #
City
Rockville
State
MD
Country
United States
Zip Code
20850