ABSTRACT

Screening for therapeutic drugs comprises a triad: biological target, compound library, and assay method. Genomics research is providing unprecedented volumes of raw material, DNA sequences, from which targets may be identified. But elucidating function from structure remains slow. Combinatorial chemistry is providing an unprecedented variety of new compounds for screening, but some of the most prolific synthetic schemes generate such small numbers of molecules that difficult tradeoffs between sample volume and concentration must be made for assays.