Word: dna
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...that's about to change. With the mapping of the genome--the twisted double strand of DNA that carries the instructions for making every cell in the human body--the process by which new drugs are developed is being turned upside down. Trial and error, which is how medicines have been discovered for the past 100 years (and for millenniums before that), is yielding to drugs by design. Increasingly scientists, armed with blueprints for our genes, can identify the individual molecules that make us susceptible to a particular disease. With that information--and some high-speed silicon-age machinery--they...
...particularly attractive target: a molecule that could prevent HIV from inserting its genes into its host's genome. That would give doctors two new ways to block HIV, complementing existing drugs such as AZT (which keeps HIV from converting its viral genome into one that is compatible with human DNA) and protease inhibitors (which hinder HIV's final assembly before leaving the cell...
Gamma secretase emerged as an attractive target shortly after 1995, when scientists working with DNA donated by families prone to early-onset Alzheimer's disease finally succeeded in cloning two genes known as presenilin 1 and presenilin 2. In a series of experiments, researchers established that these genes exercised tight control over the activity of gamma secretase. They found that the particular mutations in the Alzheimer's-prone families not only increased the rate at which gamma secretase produces beta amyloid but also enhanced its penchant for making the more toxic version...
...pinned to molecular biologists; they are best equipped to identify targets unique to fungi and to design drugs that will attack them and them alone. Tiny biotech companies and huge pharmaceutical firms alike are working on drugs that will kill off fungi by preventing enzymes from binding to DNA or by halting protein synthesis...
...long shot. Only 1 out of 5,000 potential drugs makes it from the lab to the medicine chest (a process that can take as long as 15 years). But the odds are better now than when tranquilizers came largely from inspired guesswork. Computerized brain scans, DNA probes and other technological wizardry have given drugmakers powerful new tools for understanding at a molecular level the brain's inner workings--and how chemicals affect them...