European ScreeningPort has established a strong Bioinformatics setup in being development partner of the innovative and commercially available software solution ViSoR (c.a.r.u.s. IT AG) for supporting information gathering and exchange in the drug discovery process in the area of wet- and virtual- based screening. The solution application will be unique in the world, as it has only now become possible with the technical availability of grid systems of sufficient capacity. With its content management capabilities ViSoR simplifies document-based collaboration. The ViSoR platform paves a path towards the data and process oriented enterprise integration of all relevant research systems: it represents the central platform to organize and execute projects in a pharmaceutical research organization. Research processes are supported all the way from the selection of the compound library, via assay execution down to deep analyses of the lead-structure optimization process. All important results are collected into a central database and can be accessed through a strongly secured web interface.

The software has been developed according to operational needs in Discovery Biology and consists mainly of three components:

• Image management is based on an OME/OMERO adopted image database which integrates the Acapella (PerkinElmer) and Columbus (PerkinElmer) for analysis and archiving of data from assay based screenings.
• Structure-based virtual screening platform via TrixX, a highly-efficient method developed in the group of Prof. M. Rarey (Center for Bioinformatics of the University of Hamburg) which allows for a significant speed-up of calculation time
• Integration of the academic partners through a powerful and strongly secured web-interface

Thus, ViSoR provides wholly new ways of saving both cost and time in the medical research sector of the Pharmaceutical industry. Its development draws on funds from the regional administration of Schleswig-Holstein.

Furthermore, ESP has access to 'state of the art' hard- and software required for the efficient preparation, analysis and interpretation of screening data. The available bio- and chemoinformatic facilities enable ESP to perform approaches ranging from classical simulation methods for the prediction of biological features (cooperation with Prof. A. Torda, Center for Bioinformatics of the University of Hamburg), biomolecular modelling routines for the preparation of virtual screening experiments over molecular comparisons, similarity searches and clustering through to efficient protein-ligand dockings, QSAR techniques and visualization of molecular complexes and properties.