Stuart L. Schreiber
Isr. J. Chem., 2019, 59, 52-59
https://doi.org/10.1002/ijch.201800113

Abstract

A simplistic view of drug discovery is that it begins, most often using “model organisms”, with biological inferences of a disease that suggest the need to interfere with some activity, function or process. An enzyme should be inhibited or a pathogen should be killed. Chemical experimentation yields the desired inhibitor, and clinical investigations then test the underlying hypothesis in humans. If the stars align, an effective drug emerges