Division of Medicinal Chemistry--small molecule inhibitors of protein-protein interactions

Protein-protein interactions lie at the heart of the majority of cell recognition and signal transduction processes. Increasingly, medicinal chemistry researchers are interested in small molecule inhibitors of such interactions. This contrasts with approaches based on the design of small molecule receptor ligands mimicking physiological ligands, eg, neurotransmitters and small hormones. However, there have been significant successes, and two symposia at the 220th ACS meeting were devoted to this theme. One half-day symposium focused on general issues of protein-protein interaction, and a whole-day symposium focused on the integrin family of proteins (reviewed by Giancotti and Ruoslahti, Science (1999) 285:1028).