Common Assay Reporting System (CARS) Project

Brief Description:

The Molecular Libraries Screening Centers Network (MLSCN), a component of the Molecular Libraries Roadmap initiative, has capability to test and understand the interaction between small molecular chemical structures and biological target through the use of high throughput molecular screening (HTS). The network consists of ten screening centers, assay providers, compound providers, and NIH administrative staff.

With a goal of facilitating communication and collaboration between all the entities within the network, an inter-disciplinary team of scientists and engineers from CIT, NHGRI and NIMH are developing the Common Assay Reporting System (CARS).  CARS is an integrated system for management of bioassay informatics. The main goal of CARS is to facilitate the tracking of assay projects status from assay development to chemical probe at each of the screening centers. CARS allows researchers to develop workflow and forms dynamically for collecting research data each project phase.  Cheminformatics tools are being developed to establish standards and ontologies for reporting assays to the cheminformatics scientific community.

Overview of the Common Assay Reporting System

Collaborators:

• Linda Brady, Ph.D., Director, Division of Neuroscience & Basic Behavioral Science, Molecular Libraries Screening Center Network (MLSCN) Project Team Leader, National Institute of Mental Health
• Ingrid Li, Ph.D., Program Director, Molecular Libraries and Imaging Roadmap, Division of Neuroscience & Basic Behavioral Science, National Institute of Mental Health
• Carson R. Loomis, Ph.D., Program Director, Molecular Libraries, National Human Genome Research Institute
• Ajay, Ph.D., Program Director, Cheminformatics Research Centers, National Human Genome Research Institute

Metrics/Statistics:

• CARS is supporting 10 Molecular Libraries Screening Centers
• There are 182 grants, 398 assay projects

Major Accomplishments in FY 2007

The Common Assay Reporting System (CARS) 1.0 was released in August 2007. This release provided administrative functions to the NIH program Directors and screening center investigators for tracking assay projects status from assay development to chemical probe. Key features included grant and assay data collection forms, customizable assay workflow engine with submission and approval capability, and basic reports.  In addition, the CARS team redeployed the MLI public website using an open-source content management system. This new approach has added new features compared to the previous system, reduced development and maintenance costs, and simplified page-updates by the MLI staff.

Anticipated Major Accomplishments in FY 2008

We will continue to add new features to facilitate cheminformatics research.  In collaboration with the screening centers, we will establish a standard way to gather assay data.  The standard format will be integrated with controlled vocabularies and publicly available ontologies.  In addition, we will identify mechanisms and annotations for raw data storage.

Scientific Impact

High-throughput screening (HTS) is becoming an important method for identifying small-molecules that can be used as research tool for understanding key biological process. As data generated from the HTS is being made publicly available for scientific discovery, establishing a standard way for reporting small-molecule screening data that would provide a basis for evaluation, comparison and replication is extremely important.

One of the goals of CARS is to develop a standardized protocol to describe small-molecule screening data that based on the frameworks of existing minimum information standard. With a standardized protocol in place, it would eliminate unambiguous interpretation of published data, ensure the efficient of data quality, and facilitate data integration between researchers and data centers.