The rapid progress towards sequencing the human genome has made available the sequences of thousands of human proteins. Mapping the structural features--typically short stretches of polypeptide--important for receptor and antibody recognition and other interactions is essential for understanding the function of these proteins, as well as for drug and vaccine development. To meet the escalating need for peptides to carry out these studies, new methods and strategies of peptide synthesis have been developed, ranging from combinatorial libraries which contain mixtures of millions of peptides (picomole level) to multipeptide synthesizers which produce dozens of peptides (tens of micromoles) to large scale synthesizers. It is proposed here to develop a new matrix material for the rapid synthesis of peptides at a level (around 1 micromole) sufficient to permit further biological testing of lead peptides discovered by screening combinatorial libraries. This material, a glass fiber-supported gel, will permit synthesis of peptides for testing in solution and in the solid-phase in a two-dimensional array format. It is expected that the glass fiber-gel material will have significant advantages over existing supports (membranes, films, paper, etc.) in terms of capacity, stability and accessibility to macromolecules (enzymes, antibodies, etc.). PROPOSED COMMERCIAL APPLICATION: The matrix developed from this research is focused on use as a solid-support for the synthesis of peptides, particularly restricted peptide libraries. Other applications include synthesis of nucleic acids (DNA and RNA) and small molecule combinatorial libraries. Potential products are the matrix, the matrix incorporated in 96 and 384 well plates, synthesis systems (matrix and associated instrumentation) and custom-made libraries of peptides, nucleic acids or small organic molecules. Market niches for these products are in basic research, drug discovery, high-throughput screening (HTS) and medical diagnostics
