Chemical genomics: bridging the gap between the proteome and therapeutics

Technical advances in the areas of DNA sequencing and bioinformatics in the past decade have led to the industrialization of the gene discovery process and the sequencing of the human genome. This sequence now provides a wealth of potential targets for the development of new therapeutics to treat human diseases. New technologies are now required to validate the roles that these genes play in human diseases and to discover new drugs at the scale and scope of the genome. This review describes the role that genomics has played in the discovery of disease targets and the opportunity that chemical genomics offers to validate these targets and discover small molecule ligands through an industrialized process that complements the genome.