Advances in initial compound screening have made the process much faster and convenient for the researcher, cutting back on costs and time. However, the drawback has resulted in a tenfold increase in data, which has overwhelmed the discovery process as researchers painstakingly sift through the information
The new application, LightSight Software for Metabolite Identification, improves the identification and confirmation of metabolites from data acquired as the application is designed to be workflow-based for the metabolite ID lab.
This allows users to streamline their work, simplifying the process and allowing for a larger number of experiments to be performed without an increase in resources or training.
Online documentation explains the science behind the software, while video animations guide the user through the key software functionality.
The software is designed to be used in conjunction with Applied Biosystems/MDS Sciex triple quadrupole and linear ion trap mass spectrometers. In addition, the application can be employed with the 4000 Q TRAP mass spectrometer.
"LightSight Software can help us decide which targeted drugs could be most effective by giving us greater confidence in our metabolite data earlier in the discovery cycle," said Sandeep Pusalkar, a scientist at Millennium Pharmaceuticals.
>"Every additional day it takes to move a compound forward in that process has costly ramifications, so this will be a welcome advantage," he added.
According to research by the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America on average, only five out of 5,000 drug candidates make it to clinical trial testing.
Although generally costing millions of dollars to develop, only one drug out of those five is approved by the US Food and Drug Administration and international regulatory agencies.
Drugs are usually metabolised by the body as a method to eliminate the drug. Identifying drug metabolites, which are the intermediates and products of metabolism, is key to the drug discovery process because the metabolites formed could be potentially toxic or could be more efficacious than the drug itself.
Applied Biosystems/MDS SCIEX is demonstrating its mass spectrometry platforms for various innovative solutions, including this metabolite identification application, at the 54th annual American Society of Mass Spectrometry (ASMS) conference in Seattle this week.