This award is the starter grant increment of Dr. Ellman's Postdoctoral Fellowship in Chemistry. The work will develop methods of combinatorial synthesis of organic compounds which may have physiological activity. The approach of combinatorial sythesis is important because it can lead to very many more compounds than the current "one at a time" methods. This becomes particularly useful when systematically related derivatives are desired. The work to be done will lead to benzodiazepines from the acylation or alkylation of amino benzophenones in microtiter plates. Methods will be developed to produce libraries of more complex products. %%% Currently, synthetic methods are limited by the fact that they produce one compound at a time. This work will lead to the simultaneous production of many related compounds. Development of the methods to be studied can lead to much more efficient and less expensive approaches to important drugs for human diseases.
