At the 4th Probe Hackathon hosted by Merck KGaA in Darmstadt on September 23rd, 2024, 26 PhD and Masters students collaborated with experts to review 26 chemical probes, advancing biomedical research through teamwork and innovation.

The Chemical Probes Portal hosted its third annual Chemical Probes Hackathon on June 17th, 2024, at Boehringer Ingelheim’s facilities in Biberach, Germany. Building on the success of previous events, this year’s hackathon saw remarkable achievements, with 28 international students and six experts evaluating 30 chemical probes in just one day.

At the 2024 EUFEPS Annual Meeting in Debrecen, the Chemical Probes Hackathon brought together students and experts for an intensive four-hour session, where 13 students successfully reviewed 16 chemical probes, showcasing the power of collaboration and hands-on learning in advancing pharmaceutical research.

Researchers can now explore over 1000 compounds via the Chemical Probes Portal to uncover top-notch inhibitors and chemical tools for their biological studies. Among these, 490+ compounds are deemed ‘high-quality’ probes with three or more stars from reviewers.

The Unsuitables: compounds that are too toxic; too promiscuous; interfere with biological assays or imperfect compounds that have been replaced by better ones. The Unsuitables are chemicals deemed inappropriate for use as chemical probes in interrogating specific protein targets.