Word: molecular
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Drugs are molecular saboteurs. They exert their curative effects by gumming up the works of key proteins in the body. The compounds with the fewest side effects are the ones that drop their monkey wrenches selectively, slotting seamlessly into grooves on the surfaces of their target proteins--and leaving other proteins untouched...
...easy to design drugs that choose their targets this efficiently. In fact, it's so difficult that drug companies have hardly ever tried. They have relied instead on trial and error, testing hundreds of potential drugs in animals to find a few that actually cure without killing. But these molecular crapshoots are terribly wasteful, which is why drug designers are today turning to a fast-growing new area of computer science known as bioinformatics to fuel their endless quest for newer drugs and better targets...
...resistance. Tetracycline, which kills bacteria by disabling a cellular structure known as the ribosome, is the target of one such effort. Bacteria become resistant to tetracycline, observes Tufts University microbiologist Dr. Stuart Levy, by deploying one protein that serves to shield the ribosome and another that acts as a molecular pump, forcibly ejecting the antibiotic from the cell. Those insights have spawned a line of tetracycline analogs, against which neither the shield nor the pump is effective. Boston-based Paratek, the company Levy helped found, is working with GlaxoSmithKline to develop these analogs into drugs...
...testing with a second. Other biotech firms, including Progenics Pharmaceuticals in Tarrytown, N.Y., are right behind it. Progenics currently has two compounds in human trials. Together, these drug candidates represent a sophisticated new generation of antiviral compound--drugs born of a better understanding of how HIV works, at the molecular level, inside the body...
Trimeris' compound, called T-20, blocks the final structural contortion from taking place. For this reason it and a second candidate, T-1249, are known as fusion inhibitors. Progenics has been testing a different type of entry inhibitor, a molecular decoy for CD4 whose job is to find, bind and lure HIV away from the real CD4 cells...