title: Drug discovery and the use of computational approaches for infectious diseases.
abstract: For centuries infectious diseases were the scourge of humanity, overcome only by the discovery of vaccination and penicillin. With an armamentarium of effective antibiotics, vaccines and drugs at hand, infectious diseases for many years were considered to be negligible. With the onset of the AIDS pandemic, the return of tuberculosis and influenza (e.g., swine influenza) this notion has changed in recent years. Drug discovery for infectious diseases, therefore, is again gaining increasing interest. This article discusses the drug-discovery process in this area and introduces major computational approaches used to identify suitable drug targets and to discover and optimize chemical lead compounds towards drug candidates using examples from antiparasitic drug discovery.
authors.affiliation: Intervet Innovation GmbH, BioChemInformatics, Zur Propstei, 55270 Schwabenheim, Germany.
authors.forename: Richard J
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Marhöfer
authors.forename: Frank
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Oellien
authors.forename: Paul M
authors.initials: PM
authors.lastname: Selzer
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000977:Antiparasitic Agents / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000494:pharmacology* / Q000627:therapeutic use; D003141:Communicable Diseases / Q000188:drug therapy*; D019295:Computational Biology / Q000379:methods* / Q000639:trends; D055808:Drug Discovery / Q000379:methods* / Q000639:trends; D006801:Humans; D008958:Models, Molecular
chemical_list: D000977:Antiparasitic Agents