The majority of available drugs have protein molecules as their targets. Proteins are large, complex molecules that play many critical roles in the body. They do most of the work in cells and are required for the structure, function, and regulation of the body’s tissues and organs. Moreover, proteins rarely act alone - they interact with one another to regulate a variety of cellular functions.
We first need to know how proteins looks like so we can understand how they work as a complex, and later on, design drugs that are complementary in shape and charge to the biomolecular target with which they interact.
For structure-based drug design, the D'Arcy Lab at the University of Texas is using a hybrid structural approach to charcterizing the three-dimensional structure of proteins, using high-resolution techniques such as X-ray crystallography and mass spectrometry. In #BehindtheScience, Jen learns about the experimental steps involved in protein crystallography.
Learn more about the D'Arcy Lab at the University of Texas-Dallas.
https://labs.utdallas.edu/darcy/