Drug Discovery and Development: Computational Approaches

Recently, computational approaches have been considerably appreciated in drug discovery and development. Their applications span almost all stages in the discovery and development pipeline, from target identification to lead discovery, from lead optimization to preclinical or clinical trials. In conjunction with medicinal chemistry, molecular and cell biology, and biophysical methods as well, computational approaches will continuously play important roles in drug discovery. Several new technologies and strategies of computational drug discovery associated with target identification, new chemical entity discovery, and lead optimization will be the focus of this review.