Combinatorial chemistry

Combinatorial chemistry synthesizes collections of related compounds and screens them for useful properties. It uses parallel or pooled reactions to explore many molecular variations faster than one-at-a-time synthesis.

Combinatorial library: A collection of related compounds generated through systematic combinations of chemical building blocks. It is the set of molecular candidates this method creates for testing.
Chemical space: The set of all possible molecules and their associated structures or properties. Combinatorial libraries sample only a designed region of this vast space.
Drug discovery: The process of finding and developing compounds that can prevent or treat disease. Finding candidate molecules is a major use of combinatorial libraries.
Bruce Merrifield: An American chemist who developed solid-phase peptide synthesis and received the 1984 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. His support-bound synthesis approach enabled a practical route to making many compounds.
Solid-phase synthesis: A synthesis method in which molecules are assembled while attached to an insoluble support. Attaching products to beads enables rapid washing and parallel reaction steps.
Diversity-oriented synthesis: A strategy for making structurally diverse small molecules from common starting materials. It prioritizes distinct molecular scaffolds rather than close analogues alone.
Medicinal chemistry: The design and study of chemical compounds that affect biological systems for therapeutic purposes. Chemists use library hits as starting points for optimizing potency and properties.
Richard Houghten: An American chemist known for developing methods to synthesize and screen peptide libraries. His split-and-mix methods helped establish large-scale combinatorial synthesis.
Split-and-mix synthesis: A library-making strategy that repeatedly divides, reacts, and recombines support-bound building blocks. It produces very large libraries with fewer separate reaction vessels.
Scaffold hopping: The search for compounds with different core structures that preserve a desired biological activity. Changing library scaffolds can uncover activity beyond a familiar chemical series.

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Divergent synthesisRelated: Parallel branching can create compound libraries, though divergent synthesis need not be combinatorial.