The design and development of an integrated natural products screening database

We designed and developed NEXUS-a new natural products screening database a nd related suite of software applications-to utilize the spectacular increa ses in assay capacity of the modern high throughput screening (HTS) environ ment. NEXUS not only supports seamless integration with separate HTS system s, but supports user-customized integration with external laboratory automa tion, particularly sample preparation systems, Designed and developed based on a detailed process model for natural products drug discovery, NEXUS com prises two integrated parts: (1) a single schema of Oracle tables and calla ble procedures and functions, and (2) software "front-ends" to the database developed using Microsoft Excel and Oracle Discovery/2000. Many of the bac k-end processing functions were written in Programming Language/Structured Query Language (PL/SQL) to provide an Application Programmer's Interface, w hich allows end users to create custom applications with little input from information technology professionals.