Combinatorial chemistry. Facing the challenge of chemical genomics*
Ferenc Darvas1,#, Gyorgy Dorman1, Laszlo Urge1, Istvan Szabo1, Zsolt
Ronai2, and Maria Sasvari-Szekely2
1ComGenex Inc., H-1027 Budapest, Bem rkp. 33-34, Hungary;
2Semmelweis University Medical School, Institute of Medical Chemistry,
Molecular Biology and Pathobiochemistry, H-1088, Budapest, Puskin u.
9, Hungary
Abstract: In the age of high-throughput screening and combinatorial
chemistry, the focus of drug discovery is to replace the sequential
approach with the most effective parallel approach. By the completion
of the human gene-map, understanding and healing a disease require the
integration of genomics, proteomics, and, very recently, metabolomics
with early utilization of diverse small-molecule libraries to create
a more powerful "total" drug discovery approach.
In this post-genomic era, there is an enhanced demand for information-enriched
combinatorial libraries which are high-quality, chemically and physiologically
stable, diverse, and supported by measured and predicted data. Furthermore,
specific marker libraries could be used for early functional profiling
of the genome, proteome, and metabolome. In this new operating model,
called "combinatorial chemical genomics", an optimal combination
of the marker and high-quality libraries provides a novel synergy for
the drug discovery process at a very early stage.
*Plenary lecture presented at the Hungarian-German-Italian-Polish
Joint Meeting on Medicinal Chemistry, Budapest, Hungary, 2 6 September
2001. Other presentations are published in this issue, pp.
1387-1509.
# Corresponding author.
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