Drug Discovery in the Post-Genomic Era: Systems-Based Drug Discovery

Modern drug discovery is based in large part on the screening of small molecules for their ability to bind or inhibit specific biological targets. Despite all recent technical innovations and advancement, the number of drugs produced by pharmaceutical companies remains at disappointingly low level. In this paper, we propose a new drug design strategy - systems- based drug discovery, to accelerate the identification of novel leads for specific biological targets. This new approach offers the prospect of a more efficient strategy to drug discovery, resulting in the generation of high-quality drugs with a better chance of success in clinical development.