Computer Aided Drug Design (CADD) has now become an indispensable tool in the long process of drug discovery and development. It includes finding, developing and analyzing medicines and related biological active compounds by computer methodologies. The reliability of the mathematical methods used to obtain and solve the equations is well known and so in most…
Once the structure of a lead has been decided it is necessary to design a synthetic pathway to produce that lead. These pathways may be broadly classified as either partial or full synthetic routes. The chemical reactions selected for the proposed synthetic pathway will obviously depend on the structure of the target compound. However, a…
Structure-Activity Relationship (SAR) is an approach to find the relationships between a chemical structure of a molecule and its biological activity. SARs are usually determined by making minor changes to the structure of a lead to produce analogues and assessing the effect these structural changes have on biological activity. This activity may be either similar…
Drug discovery is part luck and part structured investigation. At the beginning of the 19th century it was largely carried out by individuals but it now requires teamwork, the members of the team being specialists in various fields, such as medicine, biochemistry, chemistry, computerized molecular modeling, pharmaceutics, pharmacology, microbiology, toxicology, physiology and pathology. The approach…
The action of a drug is believed to be due to the interaction of that drug with endogenous and exogenous substrate molecules found in the body. When one or more active drug molecules bind to the target endogenous and exogenous molecules, they cause a change or inhibit the biological activity of these molecules. The effectiveness…
Biological molecules are the basic building blocks of all biological structures and processes that are the basis of life as we know it. A basic knowledge of the nomenclature and structures of these more common endogenous classes of biological molecules is essential to understanding medicinal chemistry. There are four major classes of biological momolecules and…