Today's Peptide Chemists Face A Dizzying Array Of Synthesizer Choices

Times have certainly changed since the first automated peptide synthesizer hit the market in the mid-1980s. Early machines were capable of processing one peptide at a time, a major improvement over manually adding reagents, washing between reactions, and moving on to the next step. You just set up the synthesizer, and in the morning there was your peptide. Nowadays, the choices are growing, as more manufacturers offer instruments for large-scale preparation or for multiple, simultaneous prepara

Written byScott Veggeberg

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Moreover, there is now one instrument on the market, with the possibility of others to come, that allows control of reaction temperature and atmosphere. Such instruments are intended as general-purpose organic synthesizers capable of stringing together a variety of reactants, not only for peptide synthesis but also for oligonucleotide synthesis or for use in combinatorial chemistry, in which complex multifunctional molecules are built up from a pantheon of monomers.

The array of choices in peptide synthesizers is almost dizzying, especially when one considers that only about 1,000 automated synthesizers are currently installed and about 200 to 300 are sold each year, according to industry sources. Industry insiders report that today there are five major manufacturers of peptide synthesizers in terms of sales, with an aggregate of 10 individual units on the market and two more soon to be released. Each product is intended for a different type of user. They ...

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