Combinatorial chemistry and molecular diversity approaches to scientific inquiry and novel product R&D have exploded in the 1990s! For example, in the preparation of drug candidates, the automated, permutational, and combinatorial use of chemical building blocks now allows the generation and screening of unprecedented numbers of compounds. Drug discovery - better, faster, cheaper? Indeed, more compounds have been made and screened in the 1990s than in the last hundred years of pharmaceutical research.This first volume covers: (i) combinatorial chemistry, (ii) combinatorial biology and evolution, and (iii) informatics and related topics. Within each section chapters are prepared by experts in the field, including, for example, in Section I: Coverage of mixture pools vs. parallel individual compound synthesis, solution vs. solid-phase synthesis, analytical tools, and automation. Section II highlights selection strategies and library-based evolution, phage display, peptide and nucleic acid libraries. Section III covers databases and library design, high through-put screening, coding strategies vs. deconvolutions, intellectual property issues, deals and collaborations, and successes to date.

Section I: Combinatorial Chemistry.- Combinatorial chemistry: A perspective.- Techniques for mixture synthesis.- Techniques for single-compound synthesis.- Recent advances in solid-phase synthesis.- Selection of supports for solid-phase organic synthesis.- Solution-phase combinatorial chemistry.- Analytical methods for the quality control of combinatorial libraries.- Automated synthesis.- Applications of combinatorial technology to drug discovery.- Section II: Combinatorial Biology and Evolution.- Combinatorial biology and evolution: A perspective.- Models and search strategies for applied molecular evolution.- Molecular evolutionary biology.- Landscapes for molecular evolution: Lessons from in vitro selection experiments with nucleic acids.- Synthetic peptide libraries.- Phage display.- Section III: Informatics and Related Topics.- Informatics and related topics: A perspective.- Modern chemical and biological databases.- Practical high throughput screening.- Deconvolution methods in solid-phase synthesis.- Patent strategies in molecular diversity.- Combinatorial chemistry alliances in the 1990s: Review of deal structures.- Combinatorial chemistry: The promise fulfilled?.- A compendium of solid-phase chemistry publications.- Author Index.