A picture is worth MORE than a thousand words: High-Content Screening (HCS) using the Opera Phenix Plus System by Perkin-Elmer

High resolution microscopy is a powerful technique that has significantly advanced in recent years. Higher speed, throughput and statistical power together with major advancement in genetic editing capabilities and large pharmacologic libraries enable automated imaging-based screens that accelerate drug discovery and biological insights.

The Opera Phenix (Perkin-Elmer), a powerful High-Content Screening(HCS) system is the first of its kind in Israel, combining single-cell, high resolution acquisition and analysis capabilities with lightning-fast high-throughput acquisition. It can perform unbiased phenotyping with fixed, or live cells derived from monolayers to 3D-structures and tissue sections. The Opera Phenix platform and Harmony software combine multi-parameter fluorescence microscopy with mathematical algorithms that identify and measure each cell within the fields of view, giving it high statistical power. Conducting imaging and analysis in parallel provides the fastest time-to-data possible, a key advantage for high-throughput screening applications. Recent advances in laser-based focusing, confocal spinning disc performance, camera sensitivity and algorithm processing have accelerated throughput so that an entire 96,384 or 1536-well plate can be scanned and quantified within minutes. The system is also equipped with an automation setup composed of robotic arm and an incubator that enable an automated acquisition of multiple plates.

Recent years has showed a huge increase in peer-reviewed publications, with over 2,000 publications per year worldwide. I plan to discuss some of the system capabilities and give examples of a variety of applications and analysis workflows done in our facility and in facilities worldwide, such as colocalization studies, genetic perturbation screens and small molecule screens.