What’s New in Signals™ Screening

What’s New in Signals Screening

Signals Screening is an intuitive, configurable, and flexible screening workflow processing engine on top of the unparalleled data visualization and analysis capabilities of TIBCO Spotfire^®.

Check out the latest improvements.

August 2021: PerkinElmer Signals™ Screening 2.7	-
PerkinElmer Signals™ Screening 2.7 What’s New Signals Screening 2.7 introduces In Vivo Apps, bringing support to a whole new wing of science: Pharmacokinetic experiments. The release also brings Signals Notebook integration, Calculation Explorer and Workflow improvements, as well as additional SPR instrument compatibility. With its many new features, we think you will find Release 2.7 a robust replacement for IDBS ActivityBase. In Vivo Apps for Pharmacokinetics. First full release of Apps focused on the process of running Pharmacokinetics (PK). These experiments are used to evaluate how much drug is in the blood stream of a treated organism. Nine new Apps organize all the steps of a complicated In Vivo workflow: study definition, treatment planning, drug dose calculation, animal measurement, blood sampling, dose verification, final PK calculations, and QA/QC. Includes a novel Sequence of Events view of an in vivo study that is a game-changer for how in vivo scientist can capture their data. Signals Notebook Integration Notebook properties are now included when opening a Signal Screening file from Signals Notebook allowing the context of the analysis to persist. These properties can be combined with the analysis and found easily later for traceability. Tables defined by an administrator in Signals Notebook are now automatically available in Signals Screening when opening the file from the notebook. This allows easy transfer of data from notebook to analysis with no unnecessary copy and paste steps. Calculation Explorer Visualization Layout Preserved The chosen visual representation of your analysis is often critical to understanding your results. Arrange data the way you like and when you apply your calculation explorer template to the next data set you are presented with the results your way. Workflows Improvements Ensure proper analysis by locking parameters as desired. Customize reports by configuring what items to include. Access frequently used information easily from the Spotfire Library. Easily load saved tables to quickly integrate the information into your analysis. Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR) Biacore 8K and Carterra LSA – SPR Data Import App expanded to include these two cutting edge instruments. Dissociation only model – Additional kinetic model beyond standard 1:1 interaction with mass transport allows fitting just the dissociation component of the molecular interaction. Further Details Quick Start Guides Release documentation now includes introductory guides for Screening, SPR, and the new In Vivo Apps. Introduction to workflows allowing easier adoption and faster implementation. Signals Notebook Integration Notebook administrator defined properties are automatically brought in as a table when a Signal Screening file is opened from Signals Notebook and data is imported. These properties can then be combined with the analysis. Signals Notebook administrator defined tables are now directly accessible in the Editable Data Grid App within Signals Screening when the file is opened from Signals Notebook. Calculation Explorer Visualization Improvements Page Layout – Each page of your calculation explorer template is now preserved and can be viewed individually. The order of detail visualization on each page are better preserved to maintain the analysis layout as built. Y-axis single scale setting maintained. Custom “Curve from Data Table” are saved in template allowing multiple curve fits that are brought together to be visualized together. Iteratively Reweighted Least Squares (IRLS) Adjustable sensitivity and limits on the number of excluded points. Any point with a weight of zero is marked as excluded. Curve fit parameters now have same number formatting as the corresponding axes. Limit set of curves to fit via Boolean column. Infrastructure Metastores restart automatically when the hosting server reboots to ensure connectivity. SPK file containing the R libraries can now be uploaded into Spotfire library ensuring app dependencies are met. Previously this was ensured on a per client basis. Auto-exclusion column can now be included in calculation explorer template and applied automatically. New alert whenever a change has occurred requiring recalculation of cascading data tables. Allows the review and exclusion of points without the recalculation of all fits slowing the process. Then when complete, all the curves are refit by updating the fitting results. Multi-analyte (multi-parameter) Method for use: Calculate a column based on a document property. Then create a Calculation Explorer and use the new option to parameterize by this column. A new column is created using the new parameters. The example below uses multiple analytes as the parameters. Run the calculation explorer on a new data set and this analysis step is completed automatically based on the new data in your selected column. Workflow Faster exclusion of data and fitting. Globally Unique IDentifiers (GUID) added for each curve to help with publication of data as well as traceability. Individual parameters of Apps can now be locked so that they are not editable when executing the workflow. The report setup can be edited to include/exclude which components to include in the report. Table automatically selected in calculation explorer template when run within a workflow. An empty template table can be loaded in the Editable Data Grid App to be filled in manually. Reference tables from Spotfire Library are now accessible in the Editable Data Grid App. Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR) Data Import App now supports Cytiva Biacore 8K and Carterra LSA instruments. The Biacore file (JSON) is exported from the Biacore Insight software. The Carterra LSA file (SPRData) is supported directly from the instrument. Multi-Cycle Kinetics App now supports dissociation only kinetic model. Allows for fitting just the dissociation component of the molecular interaction. This model can be applied to the entire data set or just a subset of your data mixed with other fitting models if desired. New Relative Potency App extends the functionality of the previous Parallel Line Analysis App while simplifying the analysis. It is now possible to go directly from Data Import to the new App using imported report points. Additionally, any dose response data can be analyzed as opposed to just SPR data. Finally, an editable data grid is incorporated to allow easier entry of comparison samples within the App as opposed to uploading a file.
March 2021: PerkinElmer Signals 2.6	+
PerkinElmer Signals™ Screening 2.6– Launching In Vivo Apps and new UI Signals Screening 2.6 continues our rapid progress on many fronts to support scientists doing testing work throughout all stages of life science product R&D, from early-stage assay development all the way through late stage testing in vivo. This release is a feature rich release adding a new main Apps page, our first support for In Vivo workflows, and for addressing specific targeted bug fixes and feature enhancements. New Signals App main page. Signals Screening’s new App page is a beautiful, slick, intuitive, user interface that is easy to navigate, allows users to bookmark favorites workflows and apps, and consistent in its iconography. Also, the user’s experiences of Workflow creation and management have been improved greatly. Important detail: we have re-labeled Signals Screening “Protocols” to “Workflows” . Fig 1: New Signals App main Page with workflows Fig 2: New Signals App main page with intuitive user interface that is easy to navigate, easy to bookmark favorite workflows and apps. In Vivo Apps for Pharmacokinetics. We have added a new wing to the science our product supports – In Vivo experiments. This first release of In Vivo Apps is focused on the process of running Pharmacokinetic (PK) experiments. The 8 new Apps in this domain help organize all the steps of a complicated In Vivo workflow: Study Definition, treatment planning, drug dose calculation, animal measurement, blood sampling, dose verification and final PK calculations and QA/QC. Contact your PerkinElmer account manager to get access to beta version of the in vivo apps, see our roadmap or discuss your in vivo workflows and potential collaboration with PerkinElmer. Fig 3: In vivo apps for Pharmacokinetics Curve Fitting and Calculations Explorer improvements. Signals Screening 2.6 adds several improvements to curve fitting and Calculations Explorer including: Page Views – now you can configure a Calculations Explorer template with exactly the configuration of visualization that you want to see on a page and have multiple predefined pages to show different perspectives on the results. Calculate Columns Transformations and Freeze Column actions can now be captured in a Calculations Explorer template. Additional GESD calculation options are supported. The curve fit feature is now selectable for toggling between different parameters in a multi-parametric data set on the fly. Also included in this release are many additional smaller bug fixes, feature enhancements, and incremental improvements. As a reminder, Signals Screening enables biologists to perform all the foundational steps of screening: Load data from instruments. Signals Screening brings the power of the SciStream instrument file parser to the screening scientist and ties it more directly into the data processing workflow. Develop and reuse plate maps. A key part of the screening process is the definition of the layout of the test articles on a plate. The Grid Plate Editor overhauled this part of the screener’s process and creates a significantly improved process for individual plate design and library management. Normalize the data with standard or customer-defined methods. We provide out-of-the-box the most standard normalization methods and customers can easily define their own normalization equations in an intuitive interface. Define and review Curve Fits. Any measurement from the plate and be selected for input into a parameterized and customizable curve fit engine, and the resulting curves can be reviewed and adjusted by knocking out aberrant points. Publish the results to Signals Lead Discovery. As a final step, a processed dataset can be published to Signals Lead Discovery to use by the lead discovery scientist in deciding which candidates to advance. Workflow authoring and reuse. The whole user-defined workflow can then be saved to Signals Screening so routine assays can be run, and data processed in an efficient and repeatable fashion. These new capabilities are additions on to the prior Signals Screening capabilities, such that our customers are now enabled for Basic Screening, High-Content Screening, as well as SPR. Summarizing, the Signals Screening product includes: Core Screening Apps to support normalizing and processing results Calculation Explorer to enable rapid assay development and flexible new data processing Capabilities for directly editing data of plate maps and ad hoc raw data Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR) Apps And the following TIBCO Spotfire® add-ons: PerkinElmer SciStream™ PerkinElmer Columbus Navigator for Spotfire PerkinElmer High Content Profiler Image Discovery Product Compatibility These applications require TIBCO Spotfire ^® 10.3 LTS, or 10.10 LTS . Signals Screening is available for onsite deployment. NOTE: with this release we are officially discontinuing support for Spotfire 7.11LTS version in the product.
December 2020: PerkinElmer Signals 2.5.1	+
Signals Screening 2.5.1 Released – official TIBCO Spotfire 10.10 LTS support Signals Screening 2.5.1 continues our rapid progress on the core screening and SPR capabilities to support scientists doing testing work throughout all stages of life science product R&D, from early-stage assay development all the way through late stage testing. This release is focused around adding official support for TIBCO Spotfire® 10.10 LTS and for addressing specific targeted bug fixes and feature enhancements. Curve Fitting and Calculations Explorer improvements. Signals Screening 2.5.1 adds several improvements to the settings that are stored with the CE templates including: Number formatting on Columns are saved The visibility states of all visualizations are saved Color schemes are captured and saved Curve fit results display includes a fit status “stop-light” and an improved results display Significant curve fit performance improvement during curve fit QA/QC Flexibility on the business rule to be used to knock out points automatically SPR capability improvements New Referencing App – Supports referencing of different flow cells with different reference flow cells, improved Summary table visualization, and improved Sensorgram visualizations with additional information in the tooltips. Fig 1: New Referencing App in Signals Screening 2.5.1 Fig 1: Flexible reference channel(s) selection Also included in this release are many additional smaller bug fixes, feature enhancements, and incremental improvements. Product Compatibility These applications require TIBCO Spotfire® 7.11 LTS, 10.3 LTS, or 10.10 LTS. Signals Screening is available for onsite deployment.
August 2020: PerkinElmer Signals 2.5	+
Signals Screening 2.5 continues the rapid progress on core screening and SPR capabilities to support scientists doing testing work throughout all stages of life science product R&D, from early-stage assay development all the way through late stage testing. Core Screening capability improvements Curve Fitting flexibility. Signals Screening 2.5 completes the overhaul in the core curve fitting capability, enabling support for all types of assay development, physical characterization and in vitro ADME workflows. Our curve fit engine now supports global vs local curve fitting equations, incorporating other (non-graphed) data in curve fits, as well as the inclusion of any raw data into final results. Also, curve fit equations are now stored and managed by the Signals Screening meta-store, making it much easier to expand which equations are rolled out to scientists out of the box. Fig 1: Global Curve Fitting equations New Curve Fit App – This App leverage significant improvements we have made to all Calculations Explorer workflows for curve fit selection and QA /QC. More curve fit options are now available, and data is auto matched to the curve fits wherever possible. Fig 2: New Curve Fitting App in Signals Screening 2.5 Automated point exclusion – Signals Screening now includes an option to automatically exclude datapoints using the GESD algorithm to facilitate the ease with which large datasets can be processed in the system. This automatic point exclusion capability will greatly facilitate how customers are able to apply business rules to their screening data automatically. TERR dependency checking and facilitated R package installation – Users now can see all the R package dependencies for Signals Screening and download and install all required packages at the push of a button. Fig 3: TERR dependency Manager SPR capability improvements Biacore S200 instrument support New Multi-cycle Kinetics App – this improved workflow provides a significantly improved UI with replicate grouping, sensogram coloring, and better Rmax and results reporting. New Solvent Correction App – provides functionality to correct any signal distortions caused by the solvent used in small molecule signal measurements. The app allows the selection of solvent correction regions in the solvent cycle, as well as the position on the reference to be used for the correction. Also included in this release are dozens of additional smaller bug fixes, feature enhancements, and incremental improvements. Intuitive naming for data import tables Data import app now previews the plate map results Improved user workflow for curve QA/QC Toggle-able plate view in Normalization App Easier composition of final reporting tables … and much more!
April 2020: PerkinElmer Signals 2.4.1	+
This release of PerkinElmer Signals™ Screening brings a new enhancement to the Editable Data Grid and allows historical data integration as well as new data publication app. This update also contains a few usability enhancements and fixes several small bugs. Adding plate specific details through the Editable Data Grid: Screening scientist often must join the list of Compound IDs (and any other plate specific details), while assembling a dataset. This allows for each plate maps to have specific meaning for that day's screening run. In 2.4.1, this ability is enhanced by leveraging the flexibility of the Editable Grid (so the user can copy-paste in the compound IDs) and allow for a more flexible join to be defined, using a mapping interface / workflow like that in the Calculations Explorer. Users can now: Add Compound IDs and other columns can be directly added to the Editable Grid display. Add their data in the Editable grid and define how that data should be joined to the Imported data and Plate Map. The app saves the table definition and join conditions into Protocol. Editable Data Grid Enhancement: Add plate specific details Normalization App Enhancements: along with fixes for previously noted bugs the enhancements to the normalization app now utilize the Calculations Explorer as its core engine, such that the calculations are consistently using a single calculation methodology. In addition to an expanded set of core Normalization Calculations, the App can access and apply any stored Calculations Explorer template document that has been configured to act as a Normalization calculation. In all cases, the Scientist is guided through the Normalization process with point-and-click ease to select the Well Type and Positive / negative controls using the same interface as in the prior version of the Normalization App. Expanded normalization app in Signals Screening Curve Fitting flexibility. Signals Screening 2.4.1 includes an overhaul of the core curve fitting engine and algorithm to expand its capabilities, increase its accuracy, and provide more facilities for curve QA/QC control. User control over which core curve fitting algorithm to use either the Levenberg-Marquadt algorithm and the robust algorithm IRLS. Support for weighted curve fits including all the standard weighting methodologies. Support for constrained curve fits, that will properly limit the range of allowed returned parameter values to user-defined ranges. Significant usability improvements to curve fit QA/QC workflows. Curve fitting flexibility: Managing global curve fitting settings Curve weighting options Ability to pull in historical (batch equivalent) data for data trend review before data publication Scientists can now pull all historical results for equivalent compounds or compound batches into their current Signals Screening workflow. This feature enables scientists to confirm consistency with historical trends before publishing new data. Publish to SLD as an App: Signals Screening 2.4.1 includes and utilizes the new SLD Publication App, such that a fully configured publication configuration can be saved as part of a Protocol. The final step of a screening workflow is to publish results into Signals Lead Discovery, currently this must be done manually at the end of each protocol. User will be guided to capture following data through this App and process: The Measurements that represent the assay endpoints (e.g. IC50). The associated Measurements that represent the penultimate details that were used to derive that assay endpoint (e.g. the individual % inhibition data points that defined the dose-response curve). The curve thumbnail image, if a curve fit is defined Product Compatibility These applications require TIBCO Spotfire® Professional 7.11 LTS and 10.3 LTS Signals Screening is available for onsite deployment.