Today, biologists and medicinal chemists realize that there is a strong relationship between pharmacodynamic (what the drug does to the organism) and pharmacokinetic (what the organism does to the drug) effects. A significant contributing factor to the evolution in drug discovery was the methodological and technological revolution with the advent of combinatorial chemistry, high-throughput screening and profiling, and in silico prediction of target-based activity and ADMET (absorption, distribution, metabolism, excretion and toxicity) properties. High-throughput screening and in silico methods have accelerated the process towards drugability of new chemical structures. Another component of the revolution in drug discovery is the replacement of the disease (indication)-based approach by a target-based approach. A better understanding of pathophysiology of diseases and the underlying biological processes of diseases combined with explosive development of genomics and proteomics have been instrumental in the birth of this new paradigm. This volume summarizes discussions of these three aspects of modern drug discovery, i.e. priority for targets, early ADMET assessment, and in silico screening.
We trust that readers from academia as well as from industry will benefit from these studies.