The past year has seen significant advances in the reduction to practice of
inkjet dispensing technology in drug discovery applications. Although much
of the work in this area has been done by relatively few 'early innovators
', broader acceptance of the feasibility of the use of inkjet dispensing is
on the rise. Of the three main areas of drug discovery - genomics, high-th
roughput screening, and combinatorial chemistry - high-throughput screening
has had the most applications to date. The burgeoning field of genomics ha
s seen rapid incorporation of technologies that enable miniaturization of g
ene expression experiments. Inkjet dispensing has a clear role in this effo
rt. Finally, as the miniaturization needs of combinatorial chemistry become
more clear, inkjet dispensing technology will potentially play a role.