Saturday, June 20, 2009

Changing Trend: Magic Bullets to Designed Multiple Ligands (DMLs)

The concept of selective inhibitors (Magic Bullets) one drug-one disease is no more an ideal in drug discovery. Knocking down one protein target is not enough to treat complex diseases like cancer. If we knock down multiple targets in a biological pathway of a disease with Designed Multiple Ligands (DMLs), we may expect improved efficacy. The trend in recent developments in anticancer drug discovery shifting towards a multi-target approach. One good example is recent wave of FDA approvals, "lapatinib" a dual EGFR and Her-2/neu kinase inhibitor. The other one “dasatanib” a multi kinase inhibitor and many more.