Phage-display technology - finding a needle in a vast molecular haystack

Screening of phage-displayed libraries of proteins and peptides has, for ne arly a decade, proven to be a highly effective method for finding much need ed 'needles' in a vast molecular 'haystack'. Over the past year, it has bee n used to solve an increasing diversity of problems, including identificati on of binding motifs for much smaller targets and the use of novel screenin g methods to identify chemical activities.