CAPITALIZING ON FRAGMENT – BASED DISCOVERY
Computational and Medicinal Chemists are joining forces to turn hits into leads
The following is a summary of the article, “Capitalizing on Fragment – Based Discovery”
that appears in the April 15, 2009 issues of Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News.
Fragment based screening is the process of identifying relatively simple, often weakly
potent bioactive molecules to identify initial chemistry starting points for drug discovery
programs. In contrast to the traditional high throughput screening process which
identi,es potent chemical matter with reasonable likelihood, fragment-based lead
generation has its strength in systematically probing the active site of enzyme targets
with a solved crystal structure. Not only is the fragment based screening more efficient,
the article points to the following as advantages of this design: 1) by starting with a less
complex molecule, one can effectively screen a broader swath of chemical space and
make the ,nal product more efficient and, 2) experience from combinatorial chemistry
and high-throughput screening emphasizes certain drug characteristics early in the
discovery process. The above mentioned characteristics can be chosen from the very
