With the decoding of the human genome, the paradigm of drug discovery will change to one that is focused on molecular design and proteomics. As a result of this, the protein drug has emerged as one of the most important areas in pharmaceutical science and technology in recent years.
Recent advances in drug design, including pharmaceutical chemists, protein chemists, biochemists, bioanalytical chemists, and those who are involved or planning to become involved in the formulation of protein or peptide drug products or in the development of drug delivery systems, may have the potential to overcome the shortcomings of conventional approaches and
revolutionize drug design methodologies. This new emphasis will require experimental verification of the details of proteinligand interactions under a wide variety of conditions and Monoclonal antibody drugs offer several advantages over other types of drugs. Technologically, antibodies exhibit amazing specificity that allows for a safe and targeted attack on disease-causing cells or compounds.
Current techniques require either the formation of proteinligand single crystals of sufficient quality for X-ray diffraction work or the interpretation of NMR spectra. Indeed, there has already been considerable improvement in increasing drug potency and specificity,
With hundreds more proteins in clinical trials, these numbers will continue to grow, especially since biopharmaceuticals tend to move through clinical development more quickly than small-molecule drugs. The expanding interest in protein therapeutics stems in part from their superb affinity and specificity for their clinical targets. In many cases, natural proteins serve as excellent lead compounds.
