But I felt that the explosive growth in combinatorial chemistry made it a natural umbrella for introducing traditional chemical concepts in a contemporary setting. The heavy emphasis on oral and written reports was in response to numerous calls, especially from industrial sources, for college graduates with improved communication skills. The only pre-requisite was organic chemistry and this was appropriate since I introduced the basics of solid phase synthesis, protecting groups, stereochemistry, and other topics required to appreciate the guest speakers. I also tried to prepare the students for each of the visitors by assigning journal articles and by my pre-lectures on the relevant topics. We also videotaped all but one of the guest lectures.
Combinatorial chemistry is obviously an area of significant current interest.
Others, such as some of my graduate students, are doing research in combinatorial chemistry and they clearly recognize that experience in this field will be helpful as they enter the job market. Protein chemists are familiar with the concept of solid phase synthesis. The experiences achieved by solid phase peptide chemists over the past 30 years are not necessarily assimilated or appreciated immediately. But for the reasons noted above, organic solid phase reactions seldom exceed three steps, unless they are oligomeric. The major take-home message was that combinatorial chemistry is another research tool, albeit a potentially very powerful one.