Annual Reports in Combinatorial Chemistry and Molecular Diversity

Combinatorial chemistry and molecular diversity approaches to scientific inquiry and novel product research and development have been growth fields in the 1990s. For example, in the preparation of drug candidates, the automated, permutational, and combinatorial use of chemical building blocks now allows the generation and screening of unprecedented numbers of compounds. The slogan for the industry seems to be "better, faster, cheaper?". Indeed, more compounds have been made and screened in the 1990s than in the preceding 100 years of pharmaceutical research. This volume covers: combinatorial chemistry; combinatorial biology and evolution; and informatics and related topics. Within each section chapters are prepared by experts in the field. For example, Section I: Coverage of mixture pools versus parallel individual compound synthesis; solution versus solid-phase synthesis, analytical tools, and automation. Section II: goes on to highlight selection strategies and library-based evolution, phage display, peptide and nucleic acid libraries. The third section covers databases and library design, high through-put screening, coding strategies versus deconvolutions, intellectual property issues, deals and collaborations, and successes to date.