The First Combinatorial Library

In the early 1980s, Mario Geysen, working for Australia's Commonwealth Serum Laboratories, hoped to mimic an antigenic epitope for foot and mouth virus that could become the basis for a vaccine.ﾠWithout knowing the natural epitope's chemical composition, however, he had to consider a very large number of possible peptide combinations.ﾠHis method for creating a "library" of those combinations involved a series of 96-well microtiter trays holding amino acids - some wells with individual amino acids, others mixed. With an aligning plate of plastic pins that provided the solid supports, he cycled through a progression to create an array of 1.28 billion peptides, which was more compounds than had been synthesized in all earlier history. Seen here are some of the pin grids and well plates, representing the first combinatorial library, which Geysen used at the Serum Laboratories in April 1984.