title: Can medical genetics and evolutionary biology inspire drug target identification?
abstract: New strategies for target identification are urgently needed to tackle the current productivity challenges in drug discovery. By examining successful human drug targets, it can be seen that approximately 50% are associated with genetic disorders. Further analysis shows that these successfully targeted genes share some common evolutionary features, which strongly suggests that evolutionary information can help identify drug targets with the greatest potential for therapeutic development.
authors.affiliation: National Key Laboratory of Crop Genetic Improvement, Center for Bioinformatics, College of Life Science and Technology, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan 430070, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Zhong-Yi
authors.initials: ZY
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Liang-Yu
authors.initials: LY
authors.lastname: Fu
authors.forename: Hong-Yu
authors.initials: HY
authors.lastname: Zhang
mesh_terms: D055808:Drug Discovery / Q000379:methods*; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D020022:Genetic Predisposition to Disease; D005826:Genetics, Medical / Q000379:methods*; D015894:Genome, Human; D023281:Genomics / Q000379:methods; D006801:Humans; D010802:Phylogeny; D011506:Proteins / Q000235:genetics*
chemical_list: D011506:Proteins