Word: vertexes
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...Cambridge firms, Millennium Pharmaceuticals and Vertex Pharmaceuticals, have been at the forefront of the second technological revolution...
...Vertex, founded by a Harvard graduate in 1989, is a pioneer in "structure-based drug design." In theory, the idea is plausible enough: if one knows the precise three-dimensional structure of an enzyme target, one can use a computer to design a perfectly complementary "small molecule drug" to jam into the enzyme and disable it, just as a locksmith can build a key from scratch to open a lock...
...Vertex's first major research effort--designing a safe and reliable inhibitor for the HIV protease that assists with the replication of the HIV virus--started with generating a molecular map of the protease enzyme...
...Vertex scientists solved the structure in 1992 (see picture below) and began to explore several potential sites for artificial blockage, using supercomputers to suggest possible "keys" for the HIV "lock." In practice, the computer's guess is often far from perfect, but computers can help bench-top scientists refine their search for the molecule with the perfect...
...area of computational chemistry," explains Lynne H. Brum, Vertex's vice president of corporate communications. "It helps us understand which chemical compounds [will be successful] on the bench...