Small-Molecule Microarrays (SMMs) were developed at Harvard University and the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT.

SMMs are manufactured by spotting unmodified compound collections at high density onto glass slides using a proprietary chemical attachment. Hundreds of thousands of compounds on SMMs can be rapidly screened in parallel against hundreds of protein targets. Ligon's SMM surface chemistry was specifically developed to allow the attachment of chemical collections whether synthetic, natural, bioactive, or diversity-oriented. No special moiety is required for attachment, so Ligon's SMMs are compatible with almost any existing chemical collection.

The unprecedented throughput of SMMs offers a fundamentally different paradigm for drug discovery based upon complete screening of all potential targets in a molecular pathway or protein family, and upfront assessment of drug selectivity among related proteins, versus the conventional paradigm of single target screening and after-the-fact selectivity optimization.

SMM screening has led to the discovery of many validated inhibitors against diverse targets including protein kinases, histone deacetylases, extracellular growth factors, and transcription factors. Representative publications.

For further information about Ligon Discovery and SMM screening, please contact inquiries@ligondiscovery.com