Pharmaceutical industry small molecule ligand affinity

Against all odds, the pharmaceutical industry began an intensive search for these magic bullets . Fortunately, production and crystallization of kinases is relatively easy in comparison to other protein families, and an impressive number of crystal structures of many kinases and their small-molecule inhibitors has become available (see Figure 7.16, Section 7.4.1). This wealth of structural information has aided the design and synthesis of high-affinity ligands for kinases. An in-depth discussion of these structures is included in Section 7.4. 

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