A major breakthrough in lead identification in the recent years occurred with the availability of fast and cheap computers on one hand and commercially available databases of compounds with more than a million small molecules, on the other. With the exponential rise in the number of viable novel drug targets, computational methods are being increasingly applied to accelerate the drug discovery process. This resulted in Virtual Screening (VS) technologies using in silico (computer-aided molecular drug design and chemo-bioinformatics) techniques, such as, high throughput docking, homology searching and pharmacophore searches of 3D databases. Virtual Screening, has become an integral part of the drug discovery process. The generic definition of Virtual Screening is significantly wide and may encompass many different methods. It is perhaps the cheapest way to identify a lead and several cases have already proven successful using this technology. Vs Geromichalos GD, Virtual Screening Strategies and Application in Drug Designing.
Last date updated on September, 2024