Screening of drugs from chemical combinatorial libraries employing transponders

Abstract

Materials and methods are disclosed for identifying chemical compounds having desired binding properties towards a binding partner of pharmaceutical interest. The method employs transponders associated with the solid phase material used in the assay and a scanner to encode and decode data stored electronically on the transponder. The data stored on the transponder identifies the monomeric building blocks added during the synthesis. The structural identification of synthesized compounds bound to the solid phase is done by decoding the transponder.

I claim:  
     
         1 . A method of solid phase chemical synthesis employing solid phase particles having transponders, the transponders having memory elements, wherein an index number indicating the structure of the synthesized compound is encoded on the transponder memory element.  
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising screening the synthesized compounds for binding to a target biomolecule of pharmaceutical interest.  
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 1  wherein the synthesized compound is a peptide.  
     
     
         4 . A method of solid phase chemical synthesis, comprising the steps of: 
 (a) providing a solid phase particle having a transponder, and having a chemical scaffold attached to a surface of the particle, the scaffold having active groups; and    (b) sequentially adding chemical substituents to the active groups on the scaffold, and encoding an index number on the transponder to indicate each substituent added.    
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 4 , further comprising the steps of: 
 (a) incubating the particle having a synthesized compound attached thereto with a labelled target biomolecule of pharmaceutical interest;    (b) analyzing the particle to detect the labelled target molecule; and    (b) decoding the transponder to determine the structure of the synthesized compound.    
     
     
         6 . A method of screening for pharmaceutically-active compounds, comprising the steps of: 
 (a) providing a particulate solid phase having transponders associated with the particles and a chemical scaffold attached to a surface of the particles, the transponders having memory elements, the scaffold having active groups;    (b) dividing the particles randomly into groups;    (c) sequentially adding chemical substituents to the active groups on the scaffold, encoding an index number on the transponder for each addition to indicate the substituent added, combining the groups and re-dividing the particles into groups after each addition;    (d) repeating the addition, combining and re-dividing steps until all active groups on the scaffold have been reacted;    (e) incubating the particles having a synthesized compound attached thereto with a labelled target biomolecule of pharmaceutical interest;    (f) analyzing the transponder to detect the labelled target molecule; and    (g) decoding the transponder to determine the structure of the synthesized compound.