Cell migration plays a major role in a variety of physiological events, such as immune response and wound healing. In addition, cell migration can also contribute to pathological processes including metastasis [Lauffenburger et al., 1996; Horwitz et al., 2003]. Understanding the molecular components of migration is crucial for discovering new targets to develop drugs that affect migration. Identification of new therapeutics that manipulate cell migration would benefit from recent advancements in High Content Screening (HCS) technology...View PDF

Apoptosis, the genetically encoded program that leads to the self destruction of a cell, can be induced via two main pathways: the death receptor-mediated pathway, and the mitochondrial pathway [Hengartner MO, 2000]. Induction of either will finally result in the activation of caspases, a class of intracellular cytokine proteases which are considered to be the central components of the apoptotic response. By breaking down key cellular components that are required for maintaining normal cellular functions…View PDF

Cytotoxicity is a very complex process affecting multiple pathways. The ability to measure early indicators of toxicity is an essential part of drug discovery. An important approach to the detection of compound toxicity is a multiparametric analysis at the level of individual cells using High Content Analysis (HCA) applications [Abraham et al., 2008]. Such cell-based assays, which assess several cytotoxic events in a variety of relevant pathways…View PDF

The cell cycle is a ubiquitous, complex process that underlines the growth and proliferation of cells, organismal development, regulation of DNA damage repair and tissue hyperplasia as a response to injury and diseases such as cancer. The characterization of pharmacological compounds that regulate cell proliferation and division is therefore particularly important for drug discovery research…View PDF