The results can help cancer biologists set up experiments to see how important these DNA changes really are in pancreatic cancer and whether or not they are
good drug targets for potential treatments.
Nuclear receptors
make good drug targets because one region is bound to DNA, while a pocket sits open on another part of the protein, just waiting to hold a signaling molecule.
«By looking at
how well these drugs target hCA II in protonated, neutral and deprotonated states, we hoped to obtain insights that would make it possible to improve these medicines so they can better target enzymes linked to cancer.»
A combination of techniques — from computation to medicinal chemistry — helps scientists
pick better drug targets, often because of gaining a better understanding of how diseases work
As for cysteines and serines, Cravatt and colleagues found that lysine sites sometimes have a high degree of chemical reactivity, which makes them more likely to be involved in their protein's function — and thus
potentially good drug targets.
A look at a unique UK - based public - private partnership (P3), called Open Targets that was created to help companies
choose better drug targets and reduce attrition of candidate drugs.
«If we could really describe how diseases change molecules in specific cells within the living brain, it might
enable better drug targets to be found.»
Cancer - causing proteins that have already been successfully targeted with drugs tended to have particular «social» characteristics that differ from non-cancer proteins — suggesting that previously unexplored cancer proteins with similar characteristics could also
make good drug targets.
«Inflammation is associated with bone growth: A study using induced pluripotent stem cells suggests that a molecule for inflammation could be
a good drug target to prevent diseased bone growth.»
Moreover, the region of NS5A that appears to be so critical for replication may itself represent
a good drug target.
Elledge cautions that this is just a start in determining which proteins might make
good drug targets and that the technique won't pick up every one.
«Perhaps the biggest question to emerge from this study is whether Rhes is
a good drug target for Huntington's disease,» Subramaniam said.
a brain protein that may be
a good drug target and biomarker in Huntington's disease.
If brain tumours are driven by neural stem cells with faulty developmental pathways, these transcription factors could potentially be
good drug targets.
«To make a good drug, you need to find
a good drug target,» said Andrey Rzhetsky, PhD, professor of medicine at the University of Chicago and senior author of the study.
His goals are to understand each kinase's role in the body, and to learn which kinases would be
good drug targets.