title: Open access chemical probes for epigenetic targets.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  High attrition rates in drug discovery call for new approaches to improve target validation. Academia is filling gaps, but often lacks the experience and resources of the pharmaceutical industry resulting in poorly characterized tool compounds.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The SGC has established an open access chemical probe consortium, currently encompassing ten pharmaceutical companies. One of its mandates is to create well-characterized inhibitors (chemical probes) for epigenetic targets to enable new biology and target validation for drug development.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Epigenetic probe compounds have proven to be very valuable and have not only spurred a plethora of novel biological findings, but also provided starting points for clinical trials. These probes have proven to be critical complementation to traditional genetic targeting strategies and provided sometimes surprising results.
authors.affiliation: Structural Genomics Consortium, University of Toronto, 101 College Street, Toronto, ON M5G 1L7, Canada.
authors.forename: Peter J
authors.initials: PJ
authors.lastname: Brown
authors.affiliation: Structural Genomics Consortium, University of Oxford, NDM Research Building, Roosevelt Drive, Oxford, OX3 7FZ, UK.
authors.forename: Susanne
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Müller
mesh_terms: D001665:Binding Sites; D055808:Drug Discovery; D057890:Epigenomics; D056466:Histone Demethylases / Q000037:antagonists & inhibitors / Q000378:metabolism; D062105:Molecular Docking Simulation; D009687:Nuclear Proteins / Q000037:antagonists & inhibitors / Q000378:metabolism; D010802:Phylogeny; D011496:Protein Methyltransferases / Q000037:antagonists & inhibitors / Q000378:metabolism; D034622:RNA Interference; D054852:Small Molecule Libraries / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D009687:Nuclear Proteins; D054852:Small Molecule Libraries; D056466:Histone Demethylases; D011496:Protein Methyltransferases