The Art of Finding the Right Drug Target: Emerging Methods and Strategies

Drug targets are specific molecules in biological tissues and body fluids that interact with drugs. Drug target discovery is a key component of drug discovery and is essential for the development of new drugs in areas such as cancer therapy and precision medicine. Traditional in vitro or in vivo target discovery methods are time-consuming and labor-intensive, limiting the pace of drug discovery. With the development of modern discovery methods, the discovery and application of various emerging technologies have greatly improved the efficiency of drug discovery, shortened the cycle time, and reduced the cost. This review provides a comprehensive overview of various emerging drug target discovery strategies, including computer-assisted approaches, drug affinity response target stability, multiomics analysis, gene editing, and nonsense-mediated mRNA degradation, and discusses the effectiveness and limitations of the various approaches, as well as their application in real cases. Through the review of the aforementioned contents, a general overview of the development of novel drug targets and disease treatment strategies will be provided, and a theoretical basis will be provided for those who are engaged in pharmaceutical science research. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT: Target-based drug discovery has been the main approach to drug discovery in the pharmaceutical industry for the past three decades. Traditional drug target discovery methods based on in vivo or in vitro validation are time-consuming and costly, greatly limiting the development of new drugs. Therefore, the development and selection of new methods in the drug target discovery process is crucial.