[Quality control of chemical libraries]

Abstract

The complete sequence of the human genome has been deciphered at the dawn of the new century. This historic event immediately challenged researchers with new needs both in terms of concepts and of working methods. Each scientific community considered how it could tackle these new challenges and it quickly became clear that using small chemical molecules would help discovering and characterizing the function of new proteins. The importance of the genes that the encode new proteins could thus be established in cells, organs and whole organisms. At the initiative of a handful of researchers, French chemists have organized the collection of their molecules and provided them to biologists. By doing so they killed two birds with one stone: on the one hand they created a unique opportunity to add value to their molecules by creating the first academic chemical library, and on the other hand they stimulated the launch of biologically active molecules discovery programs by biologists from the academic sector. It was necessary, however, to raise many compounds and ensure consistent quality control, which quickly became a priority for the chemical libraries to become reliable tools.