Small molecule drug discovery systems biology

Also, one would be remiss if one did not at least mention the various analytical and diagnostic NMR techniques that have come into prominent use over the last decade, particularly with respect to their applications to drug discovery. Because of the sensitivity of its chemical shift to local environment, 19F NMR has increasingly been used as a probe in the study of structure and dynamics of small molecules, proteins, and other biological systems.32-36... 

Over the past 30 years, most of the important discoveries in the biological sciences have been associated with proteins and nucleic acids, and thus chemists have been most active in conducting their research to address the relationship between the structure and function of these macromolecules as well as to develop small molecules as mechanistic probes or drug candidates to target these two types of biopolymers. This rapid progress of development is undoubtedly due to—other than the importance of proteins and nucleic acids in biological functions—the availability of various powerful tools (such as the polymerase chain reaction, solid-phase synthesizers, sequence analysis, and sensitive assay systems) to both chemists and biologists, and the close interplay between these two disciplines. 

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