Section outline

  • Druggable Systems

    Some targets are more likely to have a successful drug developed against them than others. In next generation drug discovery, drug targets are likely to be chosen on a more rational basis.  This course will introduce some targets to which successful drugs have been developed while examining the reasons why success was achieved and how these lessons might be applied to future cases.

    Learning Outcomes

    At the end of this course students should be able to:

    • Appreciate the characteristics of successful drug targets;
    • Understand and evaluate the structural characteristics of successful drug binding sites;
    • Gauge the characteristics of protein's place in a pathway, or system of interacting proteins, for its likelihood to be a good drug target.
    • Name and describe several experimental methods for validating a drug target