Analysis of a 2⁹ Full Factorial Chemical Library

Robotic synthesis is making possible the synthesis of large, systematically designed sets of compounds. We analyze a 512-compound set that is a 2⁹ full factorial experimental design using a recursive partitioning algorithm, FIRM, and a high-dimension visualization tool, TempleMVV. These techniques are used to quickly and easily identify the main trends in the data set and also identify unusual observations. We show that analytical and visualization methods can be used synergistically to analyze a large, complex, high-dimensional data set. We also show that a fractional factorial design of 128 compounds would give essentially the same information.