ISTOCK, SHUNYUFANChemical probes—small molecules used to manipulate protein function—are often not as selective or effective as the researchers using them might hope. Now, a resource called Probe Miner aims to give scientists a heads up if their choice is no good, and offer better options. In a study published today (December 14) in Cell Chemical Biology, researchers from the Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) in London describe the tool, which evaluates millions of chemical probes based on publicly available data and returns a list ranking the probes in order of effectiveness against a target.
“Getting all the data together is a monumental task, but now it’s in very simple visual form,” says Michael Walters, a medicinal chemist at the University of Minnesota who was not involved in the study. “This portal should allow people to be more efficient and effective in their research because it really points you to the best probes and gives you all of the necessary details on them.”
Poor reagents are a major contributor to the estimated $28 billion spent each year in the U.S. on research that can’t be replicated. “There is widespread misuse of chemical tools,” says coauthor Paul Workman, who works in drug discovery at the ICR. Biologists often use poor quality compounds or select a chemical probe that interacts with many ...
