I commented in January
(http://www.bio.net/hypermail/BTK-MCA/9701/0022.html) that "intelligent
drug design" is not perceived by everyone as having anything to do with
metabolism.
In the same spirit, a new article in Nature Biotechnology 15, 328-330
(1997) promises things like
"In the near future, combinatorial chemistry can be expected to have
several effects on the drug discovery process... first, speeding up the
pharmaceutical discovery process by at least two years; second,
dramatically increasing hit rates from the classic 1 in 10000..."
Still no mention of metabolism, however. On the contrary (for those of
us who like a systemic approach)...
"The ability to think about physiological process in terms of localized
molecular recognition events ... became the foundation of the
structure-based (rational) design approach to the development of
therapeutics."
Maybe if we can move away from our obsession with systems and recognize
that enzyme regulation is a matter of localized (rate-limiting) effects
we can all get our papers published in Nature... Then again, maybe not.
Incidentally, there are a couple of Figures (3-4) that look at first
glance to be metabolic pathways, but they aren't.
Athel
Home page: http://ir2lcb.cnrs-mrs.fr/lcbpage/athel/home_page.html
MCA FAQ: http://ir2lcb.cnrs-mrs.fr/lcbpage/athel/mcafaq.html
MCA chapter from my book:
http://ir2lcb.cnrs-mrs.fr/lcbpage/athel/fek10/mcai.html
