A plethora of peptide synthesizers are commercially available from multiple companies. However, a synthesizer that would combine simplicity, flexibility, and economy of synthesis was still missing. Our solution combines the elegance and flexibility of synthesis in (potentially disposable) plastic syringes with the efficiency of centrifugal liquid removal and simplicity of liquid handling resulting in a very inexpensive completely automatic instrument. Synthesizer can handle simultaneously up to 17 10ml or 32 2ml reactors (syringes). Reactants can be added directly to syringes, or the preactivation can be performed in preactivation chambers. Any individual syringe can be at any step of the synthesis removed from the synthesizer and individual operations can be performed manually. Any type of solid support can be used and both Fmoc and Boc synthesis can be applied in this machine since the synthetic compartment is separated from the environment and can be kept under a constant flow of nitrogen.
Synthesizer predicts difficulties of individual peptide couplings and suggests appropriate synthetic protocols (multiple couplings, extended times for couplings, a combination of reagents...)
Synthesizer can be upgraded for automatic one-bead-one-compound library synthesis. The concept of the synthesizer and individual components are subjects of the patent EP 3495038 (WO2019115514A1, US2020384435A1).
This machine is being produced in the Development Center of the Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry of the Czech Academy of Sciences.