The purpose of the NIH Drug Discovery Interest Group is to foster communication among
NIH scientists with diverse backgrounds in such areas as molecular biology,
biochemistry, medicinal chemistry, cell biology, pharmacology, biophysics, and information sciences
who have a common interest in the development of chemical therapies for the treatment of disease.
Drug Discovery may once have been considered an intellectual backwater.
Now, however, it's a vibrant discipline undergoing revolutionary changes
precipitated by new developments in:
- Molecular biology (transcription factors, antisense, protein and cDNA
characterizations, cell cycle and cell signaling networks, etc.).
- Molecular structure-based search and design.
- Combinatorial libraries (chemical and biological).
- New, higher tech assay systems.
- Automation.
- Molecular and biological pattern recognition (statistical methods,
artificial intelligence, neural networks, genetic algorithm, fuzzy logic).
For information about the NIH Drug Discovery Interest Group, contact John N. Weinstein at weinstein@dtpax2.ncifcrf.gov. For information about this
Web page, contact Robert Pearlstein at rpearls@helix.nih.gov.