WORMING YOUR WAY TO DRUG TARGETS

IT'S ONE THING TO DISCOVER a bioactive compound and quite another to figure out how it works. Identifying the protein target with which a molecule interacts is considered a bottleneck in drug discovery, but it's often an important prerequisite for improving a drug's properties and gaining a better understanding of its molecular mechanism of action. Researchers have now devised a way to use tens of thousands of genetically modified worms to identify protein targets of specific bioactive agents. The technique is a promising alternative to existing target identification techniques. The worm-based approach was developed and demonstrated by assistant professor of medical genetics and microbiology Peter J. Roy of the University of Toronto and coworkers ( Nature 2006, 441 , 91). "Target identification has been one of the thorniest problems in small-molecule screening, so this is a welcome and encouraging advance," says assistant professor of medicine Randall T. Peterson of Massachusetts General Hospital ...