ABSTRACT
The genome projects provided us with a huge amount of information at the DNA level and lead to the identification of thousands of open reading frames. The demand for technologies allowing the functional analysis of gene products is, therefore, dramatically increased. Discovery and characterization of
interacting gene products, molecular recognition, and molecular modeling became central to life sciences. Surface display technology based on two pivotal concepts-physical linkage between genotype and phenotype and rescue of individual clones from large libraries by affinity selection-has the potential to substantially contribute to functional genomics. The expansion of surface display technology in biosciences is facilitated by the adaptability of the systems to high-throughput screening formats for automated library handling. While recombinantDNA techniques allow construction of highly complex molecular libraries, high-throughput screening allows rapid exploration of molecular diversity using combinatorial methods. These technologies are becoming increasingly important as molecular tools for the understanding of proteinprotein interactions and for the generation of lead compounds, which, hopefully, will attract the business community to make investments in this novel segment of biotechnology.
