title: Scintillation proximity assay in lead discovery.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Scintillation proximity assay (SPA) is a homogeneous scintillant bead-based platform for the measurement of biological processes and plays an important role in the identification of active chemical entities in drug discovery.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  The design and development of solid-phase SPA approaches are examined and compared with alternative non-radiometric fluorescence-based technologies.
  
  
  METHODS
  This review provides background on the principle of SPA and its application to biomolecular interactions from a variety of biological sources.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The SPA approach is well suited to the demands of commercial high volume automation and assay miniaturization for target-based high-throughput screening campaigns on synthetic and natural product libraries as well as for benchtop characterization and confirmation studies. In the near future, innovations in the way SPA and fluorescence-based screening strategies are multiplexed will improve our comprehensive understanding of cellular system biology and dramatically advance the lead discovery process for the treatment of complex target-related disorders.
authors.affiliation: Depression and Anxiety, Neuroscience Discovery Research, Wyeth Research, Princeton, NJ 08543, USA +1 732 274 4382 ; +1 732 274 4020 ; khawajx@wyeth.com.
authors.forename: Xavier
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Khawaja
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Dunlop
authors.forename: Dianne
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Kowal