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Genes & Disease
Bioinformatics and drug discovery
In recent years, we have seen an explosion in the amount of biological information that is available. Various databases are doubling in size every 15 months and we now have the complete genome sequences of more than 100 organisms. It appears that the ability to generate vast quantities of data has surpassed the ability to use this data meaningfully. The pharmaceutical industry has embraced genomics as a source of drug targets. It also recognises that the field of bioinformatics is crucial for validating these potential drug targets and for determining which ones are the most suitable for entering the drug development pipeline.
Recently, there has been a change in the way that medicines are being developed due to our increased understanding of molecular biology. In the past, new synthetic organic molecules were tested in animals or in whole organ preparations. This has been replaced with a molecular target approach in which in-vitro screening of compounds against purified, recombinant proteins or genetically modified cell lines is carried out with a high throughput. This change has come about as a consequence of better and ever improving knowledge of the molecular basis of disease.
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