The inadequacy of the reductionist approach in discovering new therapeutic agents against complex diseases.

ABSTRACT: For more than 20 years, drug discovery has relied on two assumptions, i.e. (i) a therapeutic response can be triggered by modulating the activity of a single gene product, and (ii) a compound uncovered by its activity on a recombinant protein in vitro can perform its activity in vivo. Drug discovery operates accordingly by using the concepts of targets and pipelines. The target, such as a gene product, is the intended point of therapeutic intervention, and compounds that modulate its activity in vitro follow a series of downstream developments. This reductionist approach has developed due to advances in combinatorial chemistry, robotics, molecular biology, and genomics. The expectation of this approach is that the frequency of drug discovery will dramatically increase, while its associated

SUBMITTER: Duval MX 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6180410 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature