Fragment-based ligand discovery

The task of high-throughput screening (HTS). The task of HTS is to identify compounds that bind to the target (left; schematized as an empty puzzle frame) from within the corporate compound library (shown in blue area). The right side of the figure shows an idealized hit compound binding to the target. Some of the compounds within the library contain moieties (each moiety represented as a single color) of the right shape and chemistry to bind to limited areas within the target. However, the compounds represented in the compound library in this case all contain additional groups that prevent binding. The schematic grossly simplifies ligand binding, but is meant to portray the preponderance of ineffective compounds within the chemical library.