Combinatorial chemistry general techniques

Advances in chemical synthesis have enabled considerable sophistication in the construction of diverse compound libraries to probe protein function [61, 62). However, few general techniques exist that can directly assess binding mechanisms and evaluate ligand afEnities in a multiplexed format. To realize the full potential of combinatorial chemistry in the drug discovery process, generic and efficient tools must be applied that combine mixture-based techniques to characterize protein-ligand interactions with the strengths of diversity-oriented chemical synthesis. 

Two general methods are used to build a library of compounds by the general techniques of combinatorial chemistry solid-phase synthesis (SPS) and solution-phase synthesis. 

Profile Founded in June 1995, the company was formed to advance laboratory techniques in step with genomics and combinatorial chemistry. It was among the last companies formed by Avalon Ventures before it closed out its venture capital activities. Caliper s president and CEO was previously a general partner in Avalon. 

The two early types of MCRs remained separate entities for a whole century [7,8], but in January 1959 [11] they were combined [12] and became the U-4CR (U = Ugi) [2-4,8]. This soon also included the libraries of combinatorial chemistry [8,13a]. The educts and products of the U-4CR and its unions with other chemical reactions are by many orders of magnitude more variable than those of any other chemical reactions, and even of the entire spectrum of other MCRs. Under suitable reaction conditions, the U-4CR may produce almost quantitative yields of pure product, and with minimal preparative work [4,8,10]. Nevertheless, this profound preparative progress was of no general chemical interest until early 1995 [2-5,14], when almost overnight the one-pot MCR chemistry of the isocyanides and their libraries became one of the most intensely used areas of industrial chemical research. The technique is used not only to find new chemical products, but also to produce them far more conveniently and in higher yields than might other multistep syntheses. 

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