Increasing the quality and robustness of biomedical research using chemical probes.

Increasing the quality and robustness of biomedical research using chemical probes.

Welcome to the Chemical Probes Portal, a free, public online resource of expert reviews and evaluations of chemical probes.

The Chemical Probes Portal supports the biological research community to select the best chemical tools such as inhibitors, activators and degraders, to use as chemical probes for their experiments. Its expert panel provides guidance to select the most suitable probe for use in in-vitro and in-vivo experiments and shares experiences in best practice.

What is the difference between a chemical probe and a drug? How should chemical probes be used?
Guidelines for what makes a good chemical probe and how to characterise probes for use in animals.
Data sources for the Chemical Probes Portal and the experts behind the reviews.

Researchers can now explore over 1000 compounds via the Chemical Probes Portal to uncover top-notch inhibitors and chemical tools for their biological studies. Among these, 490+ compounds are deemed ‘high-quality’ probes with three or more stars from reviewers.

The Unsuitables: compounds that are too toxic; too promiscuous; interfere with biological assays or imperfect compounds that have been replaced by better ones. The Unsuitables are chemicals deemed inappropriate for use as chemical probes in interrogating specific protein targets.

Cite us:

  • The Chemical Probes Portal: an expert review-based public public resource to empower chemical probe assessment, selection use, Antolin et al.Nucleic Acids Research 2022 gkac909. doi: 10.1093/nar/gkac909
  • Please add our URL to your publication: www.chemicalprobes.org.