Molecular drug targets and structure based drug design: A holistic approach

Access to the complete human genome sequence as well as to the complete sequences of pathogenic organisms provides information that can result in an avalanche of therapeutic targets. Structure-based design is one of the first techniques to be used in drug design. Structure based design refers specifically to finding and complementing the 3D structure (binding and/or active site) of a target molecule such as a receptor protein. The aim of this review is to give an outline of studies in the field of structure based drug design that has helped in the discovery process of new drugs. The emphasis will be on comparative/homology modeling.