Released on: March 21, 2008, 11:48 am

Press Release Author: GTCbio

Industry: Biotech

Press Release Summary: Dr. Robert Hertzberg, Vice President of Screening & Compound
Profiling at GlaxoSmithKline will give the Keynote Presentation at GTCbio's 3rd
Assay Development & Screening Technologies Conference, June 5-6, 2008 in San
Francisco, CA. Dr. Hertzberg will present on "High Throughput Screening: A
Technology That's Easy to Love and Easy to Hate."

Press Release Body: High throughput screening (HTS) is a maturing field which is
embedded into the drug discovery process at most pharmaceutical and biotechnology
companies. Dr. Hertzberg will offer a perspective on the technological and cultural
challenges that he has observed as a screener privileged to have ridden this wave
over the past 15 years. While we can now declare victory on many technological
challenges such as assay miniaturization and automation, many unanticipated
challenges remain over the cultural aspects of screening. HTS is easy to understand,
easy to love and easy to hate - and it always evokes an opinion whether the person
is a vendor, practitioner or customer in need of hits. Dr. Hertzberg's talk will
reflect on how the field has overcome these challenges and achieved success - and
then will focus on the future of HTS. It's obvious that screening in some form will
be required well into the future, since our ability to predict successful targets
and compounds is still rudimentary. But it's equally obvious that the field will
undergo further change. A few current harbingers of change will be discussed,
including the move from single targets to complex cellular pathways and the advent
of new ultra-large compound libraries such as those provided by encoded library
technologies.

GTCbio\'s 3rd Assay Development and Screening Technologies conference will provide
attendees with critical information to utilize in the discovery and development of
assays, while keeping them informed about the latest screening technologies for both
high-throughput screening and high-content screening. Topics being covered include
cell based assays, high throughput screening, high content screening, in vitro
assays and screening, novel assay and screening technologies, and target validation.
For more information visit www.gtcbio.com.
ABOUT GTCbio
GTCbio organizes conferences specifically for the biomedical and biopharmaceutical
industries. Our goal is to facilitate the exchange of biopharmaceutical and
biomedical intelligence between industry leaders, academic and government
organizations, and the financial community.
GTCbio is a subsidiary of Global Technology Community, LLC, a privately held company
founded in 2002.



Web Site: http://www.gtcbio.com

Contact Details: Contact: GTCBIO (626) 256-6405, (626) 256-6460 fax,
nina.tran@gtcbio.com