Membrane proteins and High throughput screening and drug discovery. Bigger is Better?

Membrane ion channels transduce biological signals across the semi- permeable lipid membranes of cells. They represent approximately 20% of the cell proteome and are key in the function of many biological processes. Point mutations lead to a large number of pathological states or 'Channelopathies' in major therapeutic areas such as diabetes, cardiac disease, deafness, blindness and epilepsy. The search for channel modulating drugs was painstaking until the invention of high throughput devices capable of generating thousands of datapoints /day. While these new approaches hold out great hope for the discovery of new lifesaving medicines, the cost of these powerful devices has put them out of the reach of the average research programme. In this seminar I will review the latest approaches and discuss some novel devices and strategies that should lead to medium to high throughput devices becoming more widely available.