Editing Drug design (section)

{{Short description|Invention of new medications based on knowledge of a biological target}}
{{Distinguish|Designer drug}}
{{AI4 | image = Drug discovery cycle.svg | annotations = | align = right | image-width = 300 | width = 300 | height = 225 | alt = Drug discovery cycle schematic | caption =}}

'''Drug design''', often referred to as '''rational drug design''' or simply [[rational design]], is the [[invention|inventive]] process of finding new [[medications]] based on the knowledge of a [[biological target]].<ref name = "isbn0-415-...">{{cite book | vauthors = Madsen U, Krogsgaard-Larsen P, Liljefors T | title = Textbook of Drug Design and Discovery | publisher = Taylor & Francis | location = Washington, D.C. | year = 2002 | isbn = 978-0-415-28288-8 | name-list-style = vanc }}</ref> The [[drug]] is most commonly an [[organic compound|organic]] [[small molecule]] that activates or inhibits the function of a [[biomolecule]] such as a [[protein]], which in turn results in a [[therapeutic effect|therapeutic]] benefit to the [[patient]]. In the most basic sense, drug design involves the design of molecules that are complementary in [[shape]] and [[electric charge|charge]] to the biomolecular target with which they interact and therefore will bind to it. Drug design frequently but not necessarily relies on [[molecular modelling|computer modeling]] techniques.<ref name = "Reynolds_2010">{{cite book | veditors = Reynolds CH, Merz KM, Ringe D | title = Drug Design: Structure- and Ligand-Based Approaches | date = 2010 | publisher = Cambridge University Press | location = Cambridge, UK | isbn = 978-0521887236 | edition = 1 | name-list-style = vanc }}</ref> This type of modeling is sometimes referred to as '''computer-aided drug design'''. Finally, drug design that relies on the knowledge of the three-dimensional structure of the biomolecular target is known as '''structure-based drug design'''.<ref name = "Reynolds_2010"/> In addition to small molecules, [[biopharmaceutical]]s including [[peptide]]s<ref name="sciencedirect.com">{{cite journal | vauthors = Fosgerau K, Hoffmann T | title = Peptide therapeutics: current status and future directions | journal = Drug Discovery Today | volume = 20 | issue = 1 | pages = 122–128 | date = January 2015 | pmid = 25450771 | doi = 10.1016/j.drudis.2014.10.003 | doi-access = free }}</ref><ref name="ReferenceA">{{cite journal | vauthors = Ciemny M, Kurcinski M, Kamel K, Kolinski A, Alam N, Schueler-Furman O, Kmiecik S | title = Protein-peptide docking: opportunities and challenges | journal = Drug Discovery Today | volume = 23 | issue = 8 | pages = 1530–1537 | date = August 2018 | pmid = 29733895 | doi = 10.1016/j.drudis.2018.05.006 | doi-access = free }}</ref> and especially [[therapeutic antibodies]] are an increasingly important class of drugs and computational methods for improving the affinity, selectivity, and stability of these protein-based therapeutics have also been developed.<ref>{{cite journal | vauthors = Shirai H, Prades C, Vita R, Marcatili P, Popovic B, Xu J, Overington JP, Hirayama K, Soga S, Tsunoyama K, Clark D, Lefranc MP, Ikeda K | display-authors = 6 | title = Antibody informatics for drug discovery | journal = Biochimica et Biophysica Acta (BBA) - Proteins and Proteomics | volume = 1844 | issue = 11 | pages = 2002–2015 | date = November 2014 | pmid = 25110827 | doi = 10.1016/j.bbapap.2014.07.006 }}</ref>