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Combinatorial chemists already have in hand effective techniques for purifying many types of compound collections and for quantitating their purity, but some gaps still need to be filled. Speakers at the ACS ProSpectives conference addressed some of these needs and discussed ways in which combinatorial purification and analysis continue to advance.
By screening compounds for activity as mixtures, researchers can cover a lot of ground quickly. In fact, screening of mixtures is the traditional method used to evaluate compounds extracted from natural sources, such as microbes and plants. However, when compounds are synthesized and screened as mixtures, "usually, not only are you screening the things you intended to make, but you're screening a lot of debris that's in there with it. "That really muddies the waters as to what's active at the end of the day. That's one of the things that gives screening of mixtures a bad name."
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