Small organic molecules (compounds with a MW < 500 Daltons) are increasingly recognised as valuable tools for understanding the many important cellular events and biological pathways involved in health and disease. Because many small molecules were discovered serendipitously in the past, more recent initiatives employ screening programs that are high-throughput in nature to facilitate the efficient discovery of many more useful probes and lead molecules. Access to large, diverse and biologically relevant compound libraries is essential in this paradigm to identify useful starting points for chemical biology or early phase drug discovery. The Queensland Compound Library (QCL) is a national resource that allows chemists to deposit small molecules into a central repository for access by biomedical and biological research teams. The guiding principle of the QCL is to facilitate collaborations and add value to the already excellent basic medical research, synthetic organic chemistry and natural product expertise in the region. Success derived from the innovative use of small-molecule techniques and tools depends on the creative interaction between chemistry and biology. To this end, open access molecules and natural product extracts stored at the QCL can be used in biochemical or cell-based assays to find small molecule probes that provide temporal, reversible modulation of cellular systems to address the most challenging and significant problems in diseases associated with aberrant pathway activity. Many of the steps in such pathways will have been previously inaccessible using existing tools and techniques. Small molecules can also be used in concert with shRNA, siRNA or microRNA arrays to induce synthetic lethality. This poster will provide an overview of the synergies between small molecules, compound management and biology.