Compound test resources has always been a bottleneck in the development of screening programs in the pharmaceutical and agrochemical industries. Prior to 1993 it was customary for companies, big and small, to rely on their archival libraries and the purchase of compound samples from vendors that served as middlemen in the accumulation of diverse synthetic compounds from a myriad of sources worldwide. Problems arose, however, when a "start-up" discovery company attempted to establish a useful library of 10,000 to 50,000 compounds as a core screening resource. With minimum sample purchases (~50 milligrams) at $50 per compound, such companies soon discovered that a significant amount of their start-up capital was consumed in accessing this critical resource.

In 1993, MicroSource Discovery Systems, Inc.(MDSI) pioneered the provision of test compounds in microplate format. This approach provided efficiency, economy and diversity in a single product. The cost of acquisition was cut by as much as 90%. Diversity was drawn from world leaders in chemical synthesis, and samples were provided in a format that avoided handling, documentation and storage. Today, MDSI has evolved into a leading provider of diverse synthetic compounds, natural products and drug standards ... all in microplate formats.

The Principals contacts at MDSI are:
• Dr. John P Devlin: President & CEO
• Toni Kobylinski: Director, New Product Devlopment
• Andrew Devlin: Graphics Design and Homepage Management
• Dr. Peter Watkins: Editor, Screening Forum
• Rachel Webster: Laboratory Manager

MDSI also provides programs for the management and plating of compound collections for both brokers and discovery-based companies. MDSI maintains a compound library of approximately 20,000 compounds and a growing collection of pure natural products from it's archives and also from it's natural product division, MicroBotanica. MDSI also provides access to ~100,000 compounds through their international network of suppliers. Screening of commercial collections is conducted prior to their plating to remove analog redundancies, bioincompatible and undesirable compound classes.

We have also established a collaborative program with Perubotanica slr, and the Universidad Nacional de la Amazonas Peruana (UNAP) in Iquitos, Peru, for the phytochemical profiling of the vast resources of the flora of the Amazon Basin. The Amazon program has become a model of international cooperation and an unparalleled source for the discovery of new natural products and their application in the discovery of novel bioactive molecules.