Analytical Methods in Combinatorial Chemistry

Combinatorial chemistry is a technique by which large numbers of structurally distinct molecules may be synthesized in a time and submitted for pharmacological assay. The key to combinatorial chemistry is that a large range of analogs is synthesized using the same reaction conditions, the same reaction vessels. In this way, the chemist can synthesize many hundreds or thousands of compounds in one time instead of preparing only a few by simple methodology. In the past. chemists have traditionally made one compound at a time.