Drug design approximate models

What can be done by predictive methods if the sequence search fails to reveal any homology with a protein of known tertiary structure Is it possible to model a tertiary structure from the amino acid sequence alone There are no methods available today to do this and obtain a model detailed enough to be of any use, for example, in drug design and protein engineering. This is, however, a very active area of research and quite promising results are being obtained in some cases it is possible to predict correctly the type of protein, a, p, or a/p, and even to derive approximations to the correct fold. 

The 3D space requirements of most molecules can be represented to a good approximation by such Van der Waals surfaces. Fused sphere VDWS s are used extensively in molecular modeling, especially in the interpretation of biochemical processes and computer aided drug design. These approximate molecular surfaces are conceptually simple, their computation and graphical display on a computer screen take relatively short time, even for large biomolecules. 

The macaque rhesus monkey has an ovarian cycle of approximately 28 days, as does the human female, and it also exhibits an estrus pattern very similar to the menstrual pattern of the human female. It is widely believed by researchers in the fertility field that rhesus monkeys and humans have comparable anatomy and physiology, as well as similar reproductive func-tions. Therefore, the female rhesus monkey is a superior animal model for studying the vaginal absorption of various drugs from a drug delivery system designed for use in human females. 

Presently, relatively little is known about the potency of drugs of abuse after inhalation or smoking. In order to deter-mine the relationship between volatility and pharmacological potency by the inhalation route, the authors developed an animal model to approximate the conditions of human inhalation. The approach involved a volatilization-inhalation drug delivery system developed over the past 10 years in this laboratory. The design of this inhalation apparatus is illustrated in figure 2. 

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