Chemical probes are powerful reagents with increasing impacts on biomedical research. However, probes of poor quality or that are used incorrectly generate misleading results. To help address these shortcomings, we will create a community-driven wiki resource to improve quality and convey current best practice.
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Change history
16 September 2015
In the version of this Commentary initially published, there were several errors in the author list and author affiliations. Bryan Roth was incorrectly listed as "Brian Roth" and his correct affiliations are: The National Institute of Mental Health Psychoactive Active Drug Screening Program (NIMH PDSP), Department of Pharmacology, The University of North Carolina Chapel Hill School of Medicine, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA and Division of Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry, UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA. Mathias Frederiksen, from the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research, Novartis, Basel, Switzerland, was mistakenly absent from the published author list. These author and affiliation errors have been corrected in the HTML and PDF versions of the article.
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J.A. is an officer, shareholder and employee of Constellation Pharmaceuticals and a shareholder of Eli Lilly & Company. J. Bennett and R.C.O'H. are employees of Merck & Co. J. Blagg is an employee of The Institute of Cancer Research, which has commercial interests in the development of a number of cancer drugs. He has current or past financial relationships with or funding from Astex Pharmaceuticals, J&J and MerckSerono; he is a shareholder of Pfizer Inc. M.E.B., D.H. and D.R.O. are employees and shareholders of Pfizer. R.M.C. is an employee and shareholder of Eli Lilly & Company. R.A.C. is an officer and stockholder of Epizyme, Inc. A.J.C. is an employee of Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH. B.C. is a founder of and advisor to Abide Therapeutics, a biotechnology company interested in developing serine hydrolase inhibitors as therapeutics. M.F. is an employee and a shareholder of Novartis. C.E.G. is an employee of Takeda California, Inc., a subsidiary of Takeda Pharmaceuticals. R.G.K. is an employee of GlaxoSmithKline. M.M. is an employee and shareholder of Eli Lilly & Company. S.H.R. is an AbbVie employee and stockholder. J.P.O. is an employee and stockholder of Stratified Medical. P.W. is Chief Executive and President of The Institute of Cancer Research, which has commercial interests in the development of a number of cancer drugs. He has current or past financial relationships with or funding from Piramed Pharma (acquired by Roche), Genentech, Astellas/Yamanouchi, Vernalis, Novartis, Chroma Therapeutics, Wilex, Astex Pharmaceuticals, Nuevolution, Antisoma, AstraZeneca, MerckSerono, Vernalis, J&J, Sareum and Nextech Ventures. J.P.O. is an employee and stockholder of Stratified Medical. A.J.C. is an employee of Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH.
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Arrowsmith, C., Audia, J., Austin, C. et al. The promise and peril of chemical probes. Nat Chem Biol 11, 536–541 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nchembio.1867
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nchembio.1867
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