Drug discovery
hideIn the fields of medicine, biotechnology and pharmacology, drug discovery is the process by which drugs are discovered and/or designed.
In the past most drugs have been discovered either by identifying the active ingredient from traditional remedies or by serendipitous discovery. A new approach has been to understand how disease and infection are controlled at the molecular and physiological level and to target specific entities based on this knowledge.
The process of drug discovery involves the identification of candidates, synthesis, characterization, screening, and assays for therapeutic efficacy. Once a compound has shown its value in these tests, it will begin the process of drug development prior to clinical trials.
Despite advances in technology and understanding of biological systems, drug discovery is still a lengthy, "expensive, difficult, and inefficient process" with low rate of new therapeutic discovery. Information on the human genome, its sequence and what it encodes has been hailed as a potential windfall for drug discovery, promising to virtually eliminate the bottleneck in therapeutic targets that has been one limiting factor on the rate of therapeutic discovery.[citation needed] However, data indicates that "new targets" as opposed to "established targets" are more prone to drug discovery project failure in general[citation needed] This data corroborates some thinking underlying a pharmaceutical industry trend beginning at the turn of the twenty-first century and continuing today which finds more risk aversion in target selection among multi-national pharmaceutical companies.[citation needed]
For more information about Drug discovery, read the full article at
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News tagged with drug discovery
New research could advance research field critical to personalized medicine
Dec 29, 2009 |
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It's the ultimate goal in the treatment of cancer: tailoring a person's therapy based on his or her genetic makeup. While a lofty goal, scientists are steadily moving forward, rapidly exploiting new technologies. Researchers ...
Emerald BioStructures announces discovery of small molecule modulators of PDE4
Dec 27, 2009 |
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Emerald BioStructures (formerly deCODE biostructures) announced a publication in the December 27, 2009 advance online issue of Nature Biotechnology, detailing the application of structure-based drug design (SBDD) to engine ...
Tiny injector to speed development of new, safer, cheaper drugs
Chemistry / Analytical Chemistry
Nov 04, 2009 |
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It's no bigger than a stamp packet but it has the potential to allow rapid development of a new generation of drugs and genetic engineering organisms, and to better control in-vitro fertilization.
New Nanoparticles Could Revolutionize Therapeutic Drug Discovery
Nanotechnology / Bio & Medicine
Jul 24, 2009 |
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Understanding the structure of proteins is a vital first step in developing new drugs, but to date, researchers have had difficulty studying the large number of proteins that are normally embedded in the cell membrane, a ...
Chemists Rationally Design Inhibitors Against an RNA Molecule that Causes Myotonic Muscular Dystrophy
Aug 07, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Chemists at the University at Buffalo have used rational drug design to synthesize small, cell-permeable molecules that are effective in vitro against two common types of myotonic muscular ...
Intrinsic changes in protein shape influence drug binding
Aug 19, 2009 |
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Computational biologists at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine have shown that proteins have an intrinsic ability to change shape, and this is required for their biological activity. This shape-changing also ...
New nanoparticles could revolutionize therapeutic drug discovery
Nanotechnology / Bio & Medicine
Jun 25, 2009 |
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A revolutionary new protein stabilisation technique has been developed by scientists funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council which could lead to 30 per cent more proteins being available as potential ...
Extending the shelf life of antibody drugs
Jun 29, 2009 |
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A new computer model developed at MIT can help solve a problem that has plagued drug companies trying to develop promising new treatments made of antibodies: Such drugs have a relatively short shelf life because they tend ...
New chemical reaction offers opportunities for drug development
Nov 12, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists at University College Dublin have solved a chemistry problem which has stumped researchers worldwide for more than a decade. The results have earned the group the cover story of the leading scientific ...
Drug discovery process more accurate, less expensive using novel mass spectrometry application
Chemistry / Analytical Chemistry
Sep 17, 2009 |
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Cancer and cell biology experts at the University of Cincinnati (UC) have developed a new mass spectrometry-based tool they say provides more precise, cost-effective data collection for drug discovery efforts.
Stem cell hierarchy offers potential for isolating, growing cells
Aug 04, 2009 |
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Researchers at the University of Toronto Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering (IBBME) and Princess Margaret Hospital (PMH), led by U of T's Professor J.E. Davies, have made important progress in stem cell ...
Researchers find candidates for new HIV drugs
Oct 13, 2009 |
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While studying an HIV protein that plays an essential role in AIDS progression, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine have discovered compounds that show promise as novel treatments for the disease.
Scientists develop novel method to generate functional hepatocytes for drug testing
Oct 20, 2009 |
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Scientists have for the first time produced liver cells from adult skin cells using the induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) technology.
New method may accelerate drug discovery for difficult diseases like Parkinson's
Jul 13, 2009 |
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Whitehead Institute scientists have developed a rapid, inexpensive drug-screening method that could be used to target diseases that until now have stymied drug developers, such as Parkinson's disease. This technique uses ...
Genetic Discovery May Determine Alzheimer's Disease Risk and Age of Disease Onset
Jul 13, 2009 |
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A newly identified gene appears to be highly predictive of not only the risk of developing Alzheimer's disease, but also the approximate age at which the disease will begin to manifest itself, according to researchers at ...
