Medicinal chemistry steroid receptors

Although steroids have been studied for many years, steroid hormones continue to be a rich area of medicinal chemistry study. Steroids continue to be evaluated for their therapeutic role in the treatment of cancer, especially malignancies whose growth characteristics are hormonally responsive. In recent years, the increased recognition of the role of steroids in the brain has resulted in ongoing projects to evaluate steroids as general anasthetics and anticonvulsants. Also, the search for compounds that bind to steroid receptors, but which are not steroidal in their molecular structure, is another important area of research. 

As mentioned in the introduction, the announcement of the dramatic efficacy of cortisone (Fig. 19.1) in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis stimulated tremendous interest in steroidal chemistry, endocrinology and related areas of medicine. This effort was remarkably successful and resulted in the introduction of several important pioneering drugs. The cortisone era had a profound impact on drug discovery as it also led to the logical application of steric and electronic concepts to medicinal chemistry. Last, but not least, the cortisone era taught medicinal chemists many important lessons about drug-receptor interactions. 

Cornell, W., 8t Nam, K. (2009). Steroid hormone binding receptors Application of homology modeling, induced fit docking, and molecular dynamics to study structure-function relationships. Current Topics in Medicinal Chemistry, 9, 844. 

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