Principle of combinatorial chemistry
Chimie combinatoire

The fundamental principle of combinatorial chemistry is not so far removed from the work of the classical organic chemist. Rather than simply bringing together two molecules A and B to obtain the dimer AB (figure 1), the idea is to select n molecules A₁ to A_n sharing the same reactive function and put them into reaction with n' molecules of type B. In this way, n x n' dimers are obtained and constitute a bank or chemical library of compounds. These molecules are tested as they are, without purification or in-depth analysis, which are the most time-consuming and costly steps in a chemist's work. The principle is therefore to isolate and fully characterize a product only when it has already demonstrated interesting activity.

Thanks to combinatorial chemistry, a researcher's synthesis capacity...