Welcome

MScreen is an open source High Throughput Screening (HTS) data storage and analysis system that has been developed at the Center for Chemical Genomics (CCG), a core facility at the University of Michigan. MScreen processes HTS data through a web-based interface to help screeners visualize their data and simplify the hit-to-lead decision process.

MScreen is available free of charge to the academic and non-profit community through the University of Michigan Office of Technology Transfer and was published in the Journal of Biomolecular Screening. The license and download information is available at the UM Tech Transfer site .

Read more about the background of the Center for Chemical Genomics

Here is a quick overview of how the user interface in MScreen works. The parent menu in MScreen has two main sections to browse : Sample Libraries and HTS Screens. The 'Manage Plates' and 'Admin Functions' menu options are restricted to administrative staff.

Sample Libraries

As the name suggests, this menu displays available stock libraries. MScreen handles pure compounds, substances (that do not have a chemical structure such as extracts) and siRNAs. Typically stocks purchased from vendors come in 96-well format that are reformatted to multiple sets of 384-well stock plates. MScreen keeps track of the purchased stocks and all the reformatted stocks and these can be found under the Sample Libraries > Stock Plates menu in a grid format.

HTS Screens

Screens are either primary, concentration response (CRC) or follow-ups. Primary screens incorporate pilots, primary and retest (reconfirmation) screens. Generally a screen is accomplished over multiple days of experiments and the data for all assay experiments is available under the screening campaign view HTS Screens > Targets > Target Campaign View. Samples that are hits on a primary assay and then reconfirmed in retest assays are cherrypicked for running in CRC assays.