323109 VU Drug targets, hit discovery and case studies - MPS5 (2018S)

The course aims to provide students with an understanding of the thermodynamics of protein-ligand interaction and the contribution of the entropic term, the importance of drug like properties in drug discovery and strategies for identifying and validating new targets. These topics will be discussed on specific case studies concerning discovery of new medicines targeting nuclear receptors, kinases and proteases.
 Protein structure, Protein-ligand interactions (thermodynamics of the interaction, free energy, enthalpy, entropy).
 structure and function, physicochemical properties, lead-like properties, QSAR
 Target identification and validation: biochemical, pharmacological and genomic methodologies, (genetic engineering, transgenic animals, silencing genes, recombinant proteins, transcriptomics proteomics)
 Case studies in drug discovery. (nuclear receptors, kinases, proteases)