Automated combinatorial chemistry on solid phase

High-speed solid-phase synthesis of diverse, non-peptidyl small organic molecules in a spatially dispersed combinatorial library format is accomplished with the OntoBLOCK system. This proprietary automation system supports reagent introduction and removal, agitation, inert atmosphere, temperature control, pressure control, and vacuum drying. General purpose reaction blocks are moved along an assembly line and are processed by various task-specific workstations. Compounds are cleaved from each of the 96 individual reaction vessels of the reaction block directly into the wells of a standard 96-well microtiter plate. These plates, with one compound per well, are readily accepted into automated throughput screening systems. A customized mass spectrometer processes the microtiter plates and produces a mass spectrum for each compound. Synthesis of compounds in the OntoBLOCK system is driven by instrument control language (ICL) scripts. Client/server database software for inventory control, experiment design, instrument control, and data analysis is written in Visual Basic and Oracle7.