Computational Tool Predicts How Drugs Work In Cells, Advancing Efforts To Design Better Medicines

The ability to select and develop compounds that act on specific cellular targets has just gained a computational ally -- a mathematical algorithm that predicts the precise effects a given compound will have on a cell's molecular components or chemical processes. Using this tool, drug developers can design compounds that will act on only desired gene and protein targets, eliciting therapeutic responses free of unwanted side effects. The research, which appears in the March 4 issue of Nature Biotechnology, reports on collaborative work by a team of biomedical engineers and chemists at Boston University. The team was led by Tim Gardner, an assistant professor in the College of Engineering's Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME) and its Center for BioDynamics, and James Collins, a professor in BME and co-director of the Center for BioDynamics, and done in collaboration with Scott Schaus and Sean Elliott, assistant professors in BU's Department of Chemistry and Center for Chemical Methodology and Library Development (CMLD).