After years of publishing best practice guidelines for the selection and use of chemical probes,[2][3][4][5] many in the field agreed that publications were insufficient to disseminate this type of information.

This publication and the portal were launched at the same time the biomedical research community was becoming aware of problems in the reproducibility of much of the scientific literature.

[13] In 2016, the SGC recruited staff to take over the portal, establish it as an independent organization, and build it into a reputable source for information about chemical probes.

The Portal works closely with Target 2035, a global effort to provide high quality chemical or biological probes for every protein in the human proteome by 2035.

In June 2016, the Portal announced its founding Board of Directors[14] including Mark Bunnage (Vertex), Aled Edwards (SGC), Yung Lie (Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation), Herbert Waldmann (Max Planck Institute of Molecular Physiology), Tim Willson (SGC UNC), and Paul Workman (ICR).

Key to this process is the Portal’s SAB, who represent a global community and multiple professional environments (e.g., pharma, biotech, clinical centers or academia).

Probe pages also contain SAB comments and links to related databases or sources (e.g., journals) where additional information can be found.