Drug discovery is a time-consuming and expensive process. In the past, drugs were developed through an extensive identification of a bioactive compound from, for example, folk medicine. Later, an array of natural product isolates/extracts or a library of synthetic molecules were screened against living organisms to determine their medicinal effects. It is estimated that, with these conventional methods, it can take up to 15 years and more than a billion USD to release a new drug to the market.
Nowadays, the availability of protein 3D structural data has provided a new paradigm in drug discovery. Based on these data, in combination with computing technology, new methodologies have been developed to augment the efficiency of the process. The methodologies allow drug designers to investigate interactions between a ligand, i.e. drug, and its protein counterpart with an in-silico experiment. Furthermore, various computational techniques (visualization, docking, molecular simulations, quantum chemistry, de novo design) have been devised to optimize drug-protein interactions, i.e. to increase the drug affinity, selectivity, efficacy, metabolic stability, and bioavailability.
In order to update our horizon with recent progress in drug discovery process, we organize an international workshop on “Structure-guided Design of Drugs for Tropical Diseases (SgDD 2018)”. The workshop will include lecture and practical hand-on computer sessions, around 20 hours each. While the lecture sessions cover topics mainly about tropical infectious diseases, drug action, drug resistance, and drug design; the practical sessions are designed to allow participants to conduct in-silico drug design experiment. Furthermore, some tips on how to write a scientific article based on in-silico experimental data will also be discussed.
We are looking forward to welcoming you to the workshop.