Answer the questions based on the following article: Berdichevsky Y., et al Journal of Virological Methods 107 (2003) 245/255, A novel high throughput screening assay for HCV NS3 serine protease inhibitors.

1. What was the overall goal of the paper?

2. What was the therapeutic target against which they wanted to identify some inhibitors and what is the role of the target in the disease model?

3. The authors describe FRET andradioactivebased assay that were previously developed by other groups for NS3 activity. Describe two unique features of the current assay that makes it more attractive for scaling to high throughput assay compared to the previous FRET and radioactive based assays.

4. What were the two statistical parameters that the authors used to describe the assay suitable for high throughputscreening?

5. Suggest a reporter other than GFP that would have potentially amplified the signal more than GFP.