The discovery of a series of novel, potent, and highly selective inhibitors of the DNA damage control kinase chk2 is disclosed. Here we report the first SAR study around inhibitors of this kinase. High-throughput screening of purified human chk2 led to the identification of a novel series of 2-arylbenzimidazole inhibitors of the kinase. Optimization was facilitated using homology models of chk2 and docking of inhibitors, leading to the highly potent 2- ...