In order to conserve, and manage China’s natural resources for drug discovery and to meet the demand of high-throughput drug screening, the National Center for Drug Screening has established the Departments of Sample Supply and Information Management leading towards the establishment of a national compound library. Their main tasks include:
(1) preparation of extract libraries from medicinal plants through systematic collection, standardized extraction and fractionation, and establishment of an information database relevant to plant species, collecting sites, time and folklore uses.
(2) preparation of various extracts from fermented microorganisms via systematic collection, standardized extraction and fractionation, and establishment of an information database regarding microorganism species, collecting sites and fermentation conditions.
(3) construction of pure synthetic and natural compound libraries through collecting and purchasing of both domestic and international sources, and setting up related information databases.
(4) establishment of high-throughput isolation technology platforms to discover lead compounds from bioactive extracts.

(5) utilization of a wide variety of separation and spectroscopic techniques and in-house/public databases, to quickly identify chemical structures of previously unknown compounds contained in natural product extracts. Using the internationally recognized database management systems, in conjunction with bar code technology, to manage information on the various compound libraries and the large volume of experimental data generated by high-throughput screening.