S-GC-05-A 合同协议审批流程单.pdf

BACKGROUND A VIRTUAL SPACE ODYSSEY Cath O’Driscoll One of the main goals in drug discovery is to identify and develop new ligands with high binding affinity towards a protein target. Today, there is increased reliance on computer-based tools to visualize molecules and proteins in three-dimensional space. These help select molecules from the vast expanse of chemical space and aid optimization of compounds of interest into drugs. “Official designs are aggressively neuter/The Puritan churn out as many compounds as possible in the work of an eyeless computer,” lamented the poet Sir search for leads, hoping that the greater the number of John Betjeman about new designs for the city of Bath. compounds, the greater the chance of finding a thera- Betjeman echoed the fears of many that computer- peutically valuable molecule. But the fact that this based designs were bringing uniform nothingness to approach has not resulted in more compounds emerg- living. But in the case of drug development, this ing from the drug pipeline has meant that companies couldn’t be further from the truth. are also looking at using ‘smart’ approaches that can Computers allow the interaction of ligands and select candidate molecules for testing and identify targets to be visualized in three-dimensional space, compounds that have the desired biological activity. helping researchers to identify compounds, and to tweak and screen for compounds that have a greater Virtual reality chance of making it t