Author Spotlight: Cost-Effective Transcriptomic Drug Screening - Unlocking New Targets

Transcriptomics enable us to gain a deep understanding of cellular program and their reaction towards external changes. However, despite a considerable reduction in library production and sequencing costs over the last decades, the application of this technology, at the scale needed for drug screening, is still unaffordable, hindering the great potential of these methods. Our study present a cost-effective system for transcriptome-based drug screening, combining miniaturized perturbation cultures with mini-bulk transcriptomics.

The optimized mini-bulk protocol provides informative biological signal at cost-effective sequencing depth, enabling extensive screening of known drugs and new molecules. One of the key benefits of combining transcriptomics with unbiased drug screening is the potential to identify new drug targets that have not been previously considered. Conventional drug screening approaches often focus on established target molecules or pathways, hindering the identification of new targets, and potentially resulting in drugs with unforeseen side effects and restricted effectiveness.