Encoded combinatorial library from beads

In the synthesis of combinatorial libraries, there is a raft of tactical issues that need to be tackled. Will the library be made of mixtures or discrete compounds Prepared by solid-phase or solution-phase Screened in solution or attached to beads What level of purification and characterization is needed Will hits be identified by deconvolution, encoding techniques, or other means These are aU crucial operational aspects of combinatorial chemistry but it is equally important not to concentrate on them to the extent of missing the big picture. At the end of the day, neither a biological assay nor a medicinal chemist care how a compound was made. It is vital, though, that the tactical decisions do not prevent one from making the right compounds. Combinatorial synthesis is a means to an end, not an end in itself. 

While considerable efforts have been spent in the past few years in the field of solid supports for combinatorial chemistry [73], most of them were devoted to modified polystyrenic beads with different sizes, loadings or swelling properties [74], or carrying different functionalities or linkers for library synthesis [75], or to solid supports different from resin beads (pins [76], cellulose [77], soluble supports [78], and so on). Few reports dealt with labelled solid supports prepared by chemical reactions (see the previous paragraphs) and significant efforts in the field of material sciences to obtain intrinsically labeled, nonchemically encoded, easily readable, combinatorial solid supports have not been reported. 

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