Scientists from the University of Strathclyde have invented a unique computer technology that helps in the discovery of smarter drugs to treat major disease, including heart ailments.
Dubbed as Shapeshifting Inspired Discovery (SID), the new technology is capable of analyzing complex shapes and recognizing how the proteins might be shapeshifted by drugs.
Capable of decoding the structures of proteins in human cells that the researchers believe to be important for new treatments, Shapeshifting involves an altogether different and more subtle mechanism than conventional drugs, which stop the proteins working completely.
The team, which invented SID is being deployed exclusively in collaboration with US firm Serometrix , which will use the program in drug discovery for a wide range of diseases and conditions.
Strathclyde department of pure and applied chemistry Dr Mark Dufton said conventional drug discovery is extremely expensive, time consuming and often heavily reliant on 'lottery techniques' to identify useful drugs by chance.
"The ability of SID to predict the scope for 'shapeshifting' enables us to probe large, complex biological molecules - which have evolved their intricate shapes over hundreds of millions of years - so that we can analyse where and whether they can be targeted to provide treatments.
"In simple terms, these 'shapeshifter' mechanisms allow the proteins to modulate their biological activity by changing their surface character, rather like tectonic plates moving around the surface of the Earth," Dufton added.
The new program assists in discovery of 'shapeshifting' medicines, which can carefully adjust these biological molecules, bringing them under control and thus less likely to cause problems.
The SID team will now be deployed exclusively in collaboration with US firm Serometrix to apply the technology for drug discovery for a wide range of diseases and conditions.
