MLSMR Libraries Initiative

In September 2005, the Center for Chemical Methodology and Library Development at Boston University (CMLD-BU) received funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for Generation of Stereochemically and Structurally Complex Chemical Libraries. Under the Pilot Scale Libraries program, we generated thousands of small molecules within distinct libraries utilizing novel chemistries. These libraries are included in the National Institutes of Health Molecular Repository. Our pilot libraries include unique structures that do not overlap in chemical space with molecules already in the PubChem database.

The Molecular Libraries and Imaging Initiative is a component of the New Pathways to Discovery, which seeks to enable the rapid transformation of new scientific knowledge into tangible benefits for public health. While high-throughput screening (HTS) of small-molecule libraries is widespread in the pharmaceutical industry, the goal of the Molecular Libraries (ML) Roadmap Initiative is to facilitate the use of HTS and chemical libraries within the academic community. It is anticipated that the ML initiative will produce research tools (including novel small-molecule modulators of cellular function and phenotypic assays) to facilitate studies of biology and physiology.