New methods for analyzing compounds on polymeric supports

Beyond specialized applications in peptide and oligonucleotide synthesis, widespread utilization of solid-phase methods in organic chemistry has been hampered by a lack of powerful analytical methods for characterization of polymer-supported compounds. The advent of combinatorial organic synthesis has recently spawned efforts to develop spectroscopic techniques such as infrared spectrometry, mass spectrometry and nuclear magnetic resonance as routine tools for structure elucidation in solid-phase synthesis.