Drug Discovery
What Is Drug Discovery?
Drug discovery is a process by which molecular targets are chosen and drug candidates are created. It involves several branches of science (genetics, medicinal and computational chemistry, biochemistry, structural and molecular biology, and pharmacology) and it can be carried out by different entities (academia, biotech companies, and pharmaceutical companies). The drug discovery process is always informed by foundational disease-centric research and often creates new knowledge of protein structure, function, and validation of novel targets in addition to advancement of new therapeutics.
Learning Objectives
- Identify and describe the two main pathways to drug discovery along with the four main stages (target selection, assay development, screening, and hit/leads)
- Describe the characteristics of small molecules and biologics as drug candidates
- Discuss the different techniques available for identifying compounds as starting points for drug candidates (i.e., hits from high throughput screening, structure-based design, focused screening, virtual screening)
- Identify the top indicators used to select an appropriate clinical candidate