Discovery Automation
Discovery Automation is an internal scientific engineering and laboratory automation resource for preclinical research. Our mission is to develop and support laboratory devices and integrated technology systems that increase the quality, productivity and speed of pharmaceutical discovery processes, and enable researchers to innovate.
We are organized as a “joint venture” between Applied Biotechnology and Research Informatics & Automation. The critical interplay between science, engineering and informatics that is required to build and maintain an integrated research technology infrastructure.
Created out of a necessity to develop robust, scalable technologies to enable parallel chemical synthesis and high-throughput screening for the discovery of lead compound series, we partnered with scientific groups along the entire research pipeline, from target identification to in vivo pharmacology.
Current areas of active development include technologies to: enable cellular, tissue and whole-body imaging; long-term cell culture, cell differentiation and chronic measurements from cells and cellular networks; high-throughput compound purification and analysis; high-throughput structural biology; and chemigenomic screens to identify new drug targets.
“Bristol-Myers Squibb is one of the very few large pharmaceutical companies with a strong internal research technology organization,” says James Myslik, Ph.D., director, Discovery Automation. “This is a reflection of our belief that innovation and continuous improvement are absolutely essential to the discovery of novel medicines in a competitive business environment.”
To achieve rapid, sustainable change, we have forged long-term partnerships with scientific groups through which we develop a shared understanding of the current and future needs of Bristol-Myers Squibb - specific research. These needs are addressed by creating technology modules that “snap together” to implement tightly integrated, custom-tailored Bristol-Myers Squibb processes.
We seek scientists, engineers and informatics professionals who are interested in reducing state-of-the-art technologies to practice to enable discovery of novel medicines.