Drug Discovery

The process through which novel candidate pharmaceuticals are found in the domains of medicine, biotechnology, and pharmacology is known as drug discovery. In the past, medications were found by separating the active component from conventional treatments or by accident, such with penicillin. More recently, a procedure known as classical pharmacology was used to screen chemical libraries of synthesised small molecules, natural products, or extracts in intact cells or complete organisms to discover compounds that had a desired therapeutic effect. It has become standard practise to use high throughput screening of large compound libraries against isolated biological targets that are hypothesised to be disease-modifying in a method known as reverse pharmacology since the sequencing of the human genome enabled rapid cloning and synthesis of large quantities of purified proteins. Hits from these screenings are next evaluated for effectiveness in cells and then on animals. The identification of screening hits, medicinal chemistry, and optimization of those hits to improve their affinity, selectivity (to reduce the possibility of side effects), efficacy/potency, metabolic stability (to increase the half-life), and oral bioavailability are all essential components of modern drug discovery. Drug development can proceed after a chemical has been found that satisfies each of these criteria. Clinical studies are developed if successful.