Chemical Probes Portal

New website – Chemical Probes Portal – has been launched to help researchers choose better quality research tools and avoid errors in biomedical research.

The new site aims to predict the effects of chemical probes on proteins, cells and organisms and also determine if a possible therapeutic molecule is worth a lengthy and costly drug discovery programme.

Professor Paul Workman, Chief Executive of The Institute of Cancer Research (ICR), London said: “Chemical probes are crucial to biomedical research and drug discovery, but many of those in use actually have completely different effects from those that are claimed for them. It’s a widespread problem that is causing much confusion, damaging the quality of important research studies, misleading scientists, wasting time and money – and ultimately slowing down the search for new cancer drugs.

This is an urgent issue and we hope the new wiki site will help where more conventional communication mechanisms have failed, by providing TripAdvisor-style user-generated information about which probes to use and how.”

The site – supported by the ICR, the Broad Institute, the Structural Genomics Consortium and the Wellcome Trust – will accelerate clinical trials of new drugs in disorders such as cancer. It allows lead researchers to share experiences and views about chemical probes but it also enables them to access the most current comparative information in order to choose the best possible probe for their studies.

Professor Julian Blagg, Head of Chemistry and Deputy Director at the ICR, London, said: “It's crucial that drug discovery and clinical trials are grounded in a fundamental understanding of the effect of drugs on the proteins they target and on any other proteins that they may be unintentionally interacting with.”