Device for High Throughput Massively Parallel Sonication

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology companies have large libraries of compounds that are tested against specific targets in the search for new drugs. These compounds are typically dissolved in Dimethylsulfoxide and stored at -20 degrees C. Upon repeated freeze/thaw cycles of these compounds, upwards of 40-60% of the compounds precipitate out of solution. Because the compounds are stored primarily in 96 and 384 well plates, there are few acceptable methods currently available to redissolve the compounds in solution, making the undissolved compounds virtually unusable. The "loss" of these test compounds is a serious problem for several reasons. First, compounds are not available for testing due to their precipitation, inhibiting the discovery of new drugs. Second, significant resources are wasted in testing samples that contain either no compound or much less compound than expected. Third, this waste results in significant financial expense to researchers in lost compounds, missed lead molecules, and time. The goal of this project is solve these problems by developing a high speed, massively parallel sonication system that can be used to drive precipitated compounds stored in each well of a 96, 384, or 1536-well plate back into solution. This sonication system can also be applied to numerous other applications, including the disrupting of bacterial, fungal or mammalian cells, shearing of genomic DNA into cloneable fragments, and low volume mixing, to name a few. This device is a significant leap forward in sonication technology and will significantly enhance the drug and target discovery efforts and speed new drugs to market.