Typically, radioactive tracers or voltage-dependent dyes are used to indirectly assay ionic flux. These assays are not accurate and result in many false positive hits. Even worse, they are also prone to false negative assignment.

Furthermore, the methods cannot resolve rapid events. Therefore manual retests have been obligatory. Indirect assays do not provide electrical or chemical control of the channel environment.

In contrast, the Flyscreen^® patch clamp robot is accurate,
fast and sensitive. It reduces the cost per hit to 10% or less of the amount currently spent.