Combinatorial Chemistry & High Throughput Screening - Volume 6, Issue 7, 2003

Both the completion of the Human Genome Project and the sequencing of the genetic codes of microorganisms are providing the unique opportunity to understand Life better and consequently are producing a vast number of potential targets for therapeutic intervention. There is a great need for novel, intelligent strategies for identifying valid targets and discovering druglike leads against them. This Special Issue pr Read More

Advances in high throughput screening (HTS), together with the rapid progress in combinatorial chemistry, genomic and proteomic sciences have dramatically stimulated the development of a variety tools to enable the drug discovery process to become more efficient. Major future challenges in HTS include obtaining high density and good quality data based on assays that are rapid, reliable, inexpensive, sensitive, simple and m Read More

This review will cover the entire hit identification process performed with biocompatible, aqueous solvated, poly[ethylene glycol] (PEG) based resins - from synthesis, through screening, to analysis. The different types of resins (including their preparation) will be discussed and compared individually. Examples of one-bead-one-compound substrate libraries will be presented, as will one-bead-two-compounds libraries used f Read More

There is increasing evidence that redox regulation of transcription, particularly activator protein-1 (AP-1) and nuclear factor kappa B (NF-kB), is important in inflammatory diseases. Human thioredoxin (TRX), a member of the oxidoreductase superfamily, was initially identified, as a factor which augments the production of interleukin-2 receptor alpha (IL-2R α) in human T-cell lymphotropic virus type 1 (HTLV-1) infected pati Read More

Combinatorial chemistry is being applied to diverse problems in the biological and pharmaceutical sciences. This review will describe an emerging application called “chemical genetics” or “chemical genomics” - genetics and genomics are often used interchangeably in this context. In forward chemical genomics, chemical libraries are tested in living systems to discover compounds that cause a desirable effect. Subsequently, t Read More

The generation of novel structures amenable to rapid and efficient lead optimization comprises an emerging strategy for success in modern drug discovery. Small molecule libraries of sufficient size and diversity to increase the chances of discovery of novel structures make the high throughput synthesis approach the method of choice for lead generation. Despite an industry trend for smaller, more focused libraries, the need to Read More

Over 500 human protein kinases identified to date are susceptible to play crucial roles in the regulation of many signal transduction pathways, making them significant drug discovery targets. However, their active sites share a high level of similarity, which constitutes a major challenge in the finding of selective and safe inhibitors. In order to meet this challenge, whether via traditional or alternative approaches, the use of Read More

High-throughput technologies allow the selection of new biological targets for drug discovery in the post-genomic era. These tools increase the need of new methods to rapidly obtain potent small molecules and natural products to discover new lead structures. In particular, the solid-phase synthesis offers a great potential to obtain large compound sets.

The availability of small organic molecules covering as much chemical space as possible is seen as the only means that guarantees potential modulation of the many biological targets that are ultimately being unveiled by genomics. Therefore diversity oriented organic synthesis is rapidly becoming one of the paradigms in the process of modern drug discovery. This has spurred research in those fields of chemical investiga Read More

Supported catalysts have become valuable tools for simplified product isolation and catalyst recycling. The common method is covalent attachment to a solid support. An alternative strategy is to immobilize catalysts by non-covalent bonding through hydrogen bridges, ionic, hydrophobic or fluorous interactions. Compared to covalent attachment, such non-covalent approaches increase the flexibility in the choice of the supp Read More

Solid phase synthesis has become a routine technique in combinatorial chemistry. The need in analytical methods to characterize nondestructively resin bound molecules has been fulfilled by the introduction of High Resolution Magic Angle Spinning (HR MAS) NMR of solvent swollen beads. HR MAS NMR can give solution like proton NMR spectra and one- and two-dimensional NMR techniques are amenable, allowing detailed stru Read More

Gerard Rosse grew up in Chatillon, a small town located in the French speaking region of Switzerland. He received his B.S. and Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Basle, Switzerland. His undergraduate studies, completed in 1991, encompassed a Diploma work on natural products total synthesis under the supervision of Prof. Christoph Tamm. Dr. Rosse's doctoral thesis on the design, synthesis and biological characterizati Read More