About the Webinar Series

This webinar series is hosted by the NCATS Assay Guidance Manual (AGM) program and is jointly organized by the AGM Program and the NCATS Office of Drug Development Partnership Programs (ODDPP). This series is designed to disseminate critical information about preclinical translational science and is particularly relevant for biomedical researchers that are conducting preclinical studies to advance research leading to interventions that will impact human health. This virtual series runs quarterly and hosts prominent speakers in the field.

Goals and Objectives

• Disseminate best practices in preclinical translational science to help bridge the gap between research discoveries and the delivery of new therapies. 

• Discuss topics that are relevant to preclinical translational science including reproducibility, assay development, new and emerging modalities in drug discovery, entrepreneurship and others.

• Dissect case studies about successful/unsuccessful drug discovery campaigns with the goal of learning lessons in strategy/methods/approaches to help accelerate drug development.

• Provide an overview of the Assay Guidance Manual ebook as an important resource for detailed information about robust assay methods and best practices in quantitative biology.

• Disseminate the principles of translational science amongst scientists in biomedical research and demonstrate how these are applied in preclinical research.

About the Assay Guidance Manual

The Assay Guidance Manual (AGM) is a free, best-practices online resource devoted to the successful development of robust, early-stage drug discovery assays.

The manual was originally developed by Eli Lilly and Company to provide step-by-step guidance based on experiential knowledge from drug developers for planning and executing projects in high-throughput screening, lead optimization and early phases of drug development. The AGM has now been expanded into a unique, user-friendly collection of over 50 chapters organized into 10 sections including a glossary of common terms used in drug discovery. The chapters contain well-tested knowledge, much of which is being documented for the first time.

The National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) manages the content of the manual with input from industry, academia and government experts. More than 100 authors from around the world have contributed content to this free resource, which is updated and expended as technologies evolve, and housed by the National Library of Medicine. The AGM has proven to be a widely-used resource for those working in drug discovery and since 2017, the AGM has been receiving more than 30,000 monthly views from over 130 countries by scientists from both public and private sectors.