Applying computational modeling to drug discovery and development.
Computational models of cells, tissues and organisms are necessary for increased understanding of biological systems. In particular, modeling approaches will be crucial for moving biology from a descriptive to a predictive science. Pharmaceutical companies identify molecular interventions that they predict will lead to therapies at the organism level, suggesting that computational biology can play a key role in the pharmaceutical industry. We discuss pharmaceutically-relevant computational modeling approaches currently used as predictive tools. Specific examples demonstrate how companies can employ these computational models to improve the efficiency of transforming targets into therapies.
Kumar
Neil
N
Department of Chemical Engineering, Pfizer Research Technology Center, and Department of Biological Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. nkumar@mit.edu
Hendriks
Bart S
BS
Janes
Kevin A
KA
de Graaf
David
D
Lauffenburger
Douglas A
DA
D000818:Animals; D019295:Computational Biology; D015195:Drug Design; D004345:Drug Industry; D006801:Humans; D008954:Models, Biological; D015398:Signal Transduction