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Chemistry or biology: which comes first after the genome is sequenced?
1Institute of Chemistry and Cell Biology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA. randy_king@hms.harvard.edu
Chemistry & Biology
|January 13, 2000
Abstract:
In drug discovery, chemical screening is performed after a protein's function has been determined. By screening for ligands that alter the function of a cell or an organism, new proteins that participate in poorly understood biological processes can be identified. Genomic and expression-cloning technologies can rapidly identify the protein targets of these ligands, enhancing the power of chemical screening as a tool for the initial stages of biological discovery.