About the Donated Chemical Probes Program

Potent, selective and broadly characterized, small molecule chemical modulators of protein function (chemical probes), are powerful research reagents. In this unique open science project, originally initiated by several pharmaceutical companies (AbbVie, Bayer, Boehringer Ingelheim, Janssen, MSD, Pfizer, and Takeda) makes innovative high-quality probes openly available to the research community. These probes complement the probe set generated by the SGC and its academic and industry collaborators. Moreover, several probes are suitable for in vivo use. All probe and control compound-associated data and recommendations on use, are presented in a database, thereby providing both a unique resource of chemical tools and target-related knowledge in order to help researchers to decide, which chemical tools to choose, at which concentrations to use them, and how to interpret the resulting data taking into account the profiling results. More information

The probes meet the following criteria

•  Potency < 100 nM (IC₅₀ or K_D)
•  Selectivity within target family > 30-fold
•  Extensive off-targets profiling outside target family
•  Cellular on-target activity < 1 µM (IC₅₀ or EC₅₀)
•  100-fold less potent control compound available
•  No PAINS elements

All probes can be used by the research community without restriction!

Selected publications

•  Deep Annotation of Donated Chemical Probes (DCP). Tredup et al. 2023. ACS Chem Biol
•  Donated chemical probes for open science. Müller et al. 2018. eLife
•  The promise and peril of chemical probes. Arrowsmith et al. 2015. Nat Chem Biol
•  Public resources for chemical probes: the journey so far and the road ahead. Antolin et al. 2021. Future Med Chem
•  The chemical probe – scopes, limitations and challenges. Stark. 2020. Expert Opin Drug Discov
•  Design, synthesis, and strategic use of small chemical probes toward identification of novel targets for drug development. Castaldi et al. 2020. Curr Opin Chem Biol
•  Will the chemical probes please stand up? Škuta et al. 2021. RSC Medicinal Chemistry
•  Target 2035 – update on the quest for a probe for every protein. Müller et al. 2022. RSC Medicinal Chemistry