Drug Discovery and Drug Development in Molecular Sciences
A topical collection in International Journal of Molecular Sciences (ISSN 1422-0067). This collection belongs to the section "Molecular Pharmacology".
Viewed by 125Editor
Interests: RT-qPCR; miRNA; meningioma; solid deep sequencing; cap cells and immunohistochemistry (IHC); epigenetics; molecular biology; protein and genetic engineering
Topical Collection Information
Dear Colleagues,
After the great advances in molecular biology, including proteomics and transcriptomics techniques, drug discovery shifted from a focus on a disease phenotype-dependent process to the focus on the discovery of druggable targets. The druggable targets are predominantly differentially expressed proteins that include receptors, ion channels, transporters, enzymes, oncogenes, lipids, and carbohydrates. Other target types include mRNA and noncoding RNAs. The discovered putative target must be validated. Target discovery and validation are fundamental steps in this type of drug discovery.
One of the target validation methods that has recently come into use is transgenesis, which involves transgenics using the suspected coding gene in animals such as mice and zebrafish.
Currently, using AI-driven methods provides a significantly faster drug discovery process that includes disease target identification, molecular docking, lead optimization, and drug repurposing, offering much higher efficiency in discovering novel therapeutic drugs. CRISPR/Cas9 applications enable efficient target validation.
Sources of extensive chemical libraries used for high-throughput screening for drug candidates/lead compound discovery are diverse and can include natural products derived from plants and algae, expansive synthetic chemical libraries, and virtual chemical libraries. The discovered lead compound is subjected to an optimization process to improve, for example, solubility, stability, and target binding. Subsequently, the optimized lead compound is subjected to a drug development process that includes extensive in vitro and animal studies that are essential for the prospect of the lead compound. This step is very crucial in the subsequent success of the lead compound in preclinical and the subsequent clinical trial phases. Only the successful lead compounds that survived the critical evaluation as well as the divergent phases of clinical trials can proceed to the regulatory phase by filing for a “New Drug Application (NDA)”. Comprehensive data is then submitted to regulatory agencies (the FDA in the US, the EMA in Europe).
Prof. Dr. M. Raafat El-Gewely
Collection Editor
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Keywords
- expressed protein targets for drug discovery
- mRNAs targets for drug discovery
- noncoding RNAs targets for drug discovery
- synthetic lethality in cancer drug discovery
- high-throughput screening
- transgenesis
- molecular docking
- lead-compound optimization
- drug development
- protein-crystal structure for drug discovery
- AI for drug discovery and development
- drugs repurpose
