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Cited by 299

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 146 of the 146 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Probing the Probes: Fitness Factors For Small Molecule Tools

Open access
Workman, Paul, Collins, Ian·2010·Chemistry & Biology

Abstract

Chemical probes for interrogating biological processes are of considerable current interest. Cell permeable small molecule tools have a major role in facilitating the functional annotation of the human genome, understanding both physiological and pathological processes, and validating new molecular targets. To be valuable, chemical tools must satisfy necessary criteria and recent publications have suggested objective guidelines for what makes a useful chemical probe. Although recognizing that such guidelines may be valuable, we caution against overly restrictive rules that may stifle innovation in favor of a "fit-for-purpose" approach. Reviewing the literature and providing examples from the cancer field, we recommend a series of "fitness factors" to be considered when assessing chemical probes. We hope this will encourage innovative chemical biology research while minimizing the generation of poor quality and misleading biological data, thus increasing understanding of the particular biological area, to the benefit of basic research and drug discovery.

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Metadata

Authors
Workman, P., & Collins, I.
Venue
Chemistry & Biology
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2010-06
Volume
17
Issue
6
Pages
561-577
ISSN
1074-5521 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W2166594615
Cited by
299
References
146
FWCI
20.08
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
hybrid

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CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Probing the Probes: Fitness Factors For Small Molecule Tools. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1016/j.chembiol.2010.05.013
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Workman, P., & Collins, I. (2010). Probing the Probes: Fitness Factors For Small Molecule Tools. Chemistry & Biology. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chembiol.2010.05.013

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Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).

Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.