Researchers from 3M Pharmaceuticals have published research describing the use of high-content screening with cell-based TUNEL staining to evaluate the apoptotic response of cancerous and normal human cells to small-molecule receptor agonists.

The research demonstrates one way that HCS can be employed as a secondary screening tool in the drug-discovery process and, in particular, how it can be used to improve the accuracy and speed of well-characterized, but relatively low-throughput, cell-based assays.