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Nature Chemical Biology 5, 479–483 (1 July 2009) | doi:10.1038/nchembio.180

Quantifying biogenic bias in screening libraries

J|[eacute]|r|[ocirc]|me Hert , John J Irwin , Christian Laggner , Michael J Keiser & Brian K Shoichet

In lead discovery, libraries of 106 molecules are screened for biological activity. Given the over 1060 drug-like molecules thought possible, such screens might never succeed. The fact that they do, even occasionally, implies a biased selection of library molecules. We have developed a method to quantify the bias in screening libraries toward biogenic molecules. With this approach, we consider what is missing from screening libraries and how they can be optimized.