Solutions Case Studies
Download DocumentACD: A Key Component of University Lab's Successful Drug Design Strategy
Interest in rational drug design has waxed and waned during the past decade. But if the success of researchers at Jefferson Medical College's Peptide Chemistry Laboratory (Philadelphia, PA) is any indication, rational drug design may finally come into it's own in the first decade of the third millennium.
The computer assisted discovery techniques employed by Dr. Ziwei Huang's research team have landed one drug in clinical trials and have prompted the group to seek FDA approval to expand clinical trial activity into a second therapeutic area. Most importantly, however, the laboratory achieved these results in a fraction of the time required for traditional drug development strategies.
MDL's Available Chemicals Directory (ACD), which Huang's team received through an academic partnership with MDL, was used in the lab's CD4 drug development program and continues to play an invaluable role in the lab's other projects, according to Huang. "For an academic research group such as ours, rapid, ready access to chemicals is essential," Huang said. "ACD contains an enormous, exceedingly diverse collection of compounds, all of which are available commercially. When we find a promising compound, we simply purchase it. ACD helps streamline our research activities."
Structure of an organic inhibitor (TJU103) bound to the CD4 surface pocket as predicted by computer docking calculation.
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