Sam Michael

Mr. Michael has managed all aspects of the Automation and Compound management (ACOMM) group at NCATS for 10 years and has successfully directed upgrades of the NCATS existing automated systems, including both hardware and software integration. His group currently completes well over 80 assays per year on a variety of robotic systems and over time the scope of capabilities they offer the institute continues to increase from both a screening and compound management perspective.  Although a tremendous effort goes into maintaining the day to day operations of the group a near equal effort goes into evaluating, developing and implementing new and novel technologies to keep pace with scientific advances.  This model of continuous improvement has led to a variety of enabling tools, allowing researchers at NCATS and their collaborators to advance the scientific mission of the institute.  This has also led to several SBIR topics of which Mr. Michael has acted as the point of origin and technical lead with three Phase 2 awards to small businesses to develop novel instrumentation to advance the field of High Throughput Screening (HTS).  The success of the ACOMM group led to Mr. Michael taking on the challenge of acting as CIO of the institute, which fits his vision that with regards to next generation scientific instrumentation the challenges and opportunities are one and the same with automated systems.