Specific Features of Small Molecules used for Biology

Synthetic or natural product derived molecules which interfere with biological functions offer specific features for application:

- temporal control:  i.e. at specific phases of cell cycle
- dosage control:     i.e. for characterization of threshold levels
- local control:          i.e. at specific sites of a cell (beads, caged compounds)
- multiple targets:    i.e. combination of effectors for different targets.

Efficient and systematic usage of small molecules
as probes for exploring biological systems requires set up of:

- compound libraries containing about 100.000 compounds
- platforms with automation for high throughput screening
- supporting chemistry for modification and optimization of hits
- tools for data analysis and communication.

To achieve this, ChemBioNet  defined standards for compound library management and formats for efficient exchange and documentation of chemical and screening data in the shared database.