The Screening Discovery Platform (SDP) provides expertise in the early stages of the drug discovery pipeline for assay development and high-throughput screening. Our research activities enable discovery of small molecules and target identification for drug development, biomarkers, and elucidation of disease mechanisms. SDP works in close collaboration with each investigator within Institut Pasteur Korea (IPK) and with outside collaborators, providing guidance through all stages of the chemical and RNAi screening process: Assay development, Assay validation, Assay automation, High-content or high-throughput screening and Data analysis.

SDP optimizes and validates all screening assays for IPK discovery biology programs such as bacterial (streptococcus pneumoniae, mycobacterium tuberculosis), parasitic (visceral leishmaniasis), and viral research (hepatitis B, EBOLA, MERS-CoV). SDP was recognized in 2016, 2017 and 2023 by Drugs for Neglected Disease initiative (DNDi-IPK) for our role in a multi-collaborative effort to identify small molecules for therapies against visceral leishmaniasis and Chagas disease.

Our capabilities/assets include:

• Pathogen and biological research conducted in fully-automated robotic platforms located in BSL-2+ and BSL-3 laboratories
• Validating and formatting assays to 96/384/1536 well format to perform screening activities
• Conducting screening assays covering a wide range of detection readouts including fluorescence, bioluminescence, absorbance, and imaging (confocal and epi-fluorescent)
• Small chemical library collection of compounds identified as potential starting points for the development of novel therapeutics. Library is comprised of ~400,000 molecules covering diverse sources including synthetic, natural products, extracts, and FDA approved drugs to early drug discovery programs
• Genomic platforms (siRNA and shRNA technology) to identify new targets and signaling pathways as well as uncover mechanism of actions