Biologists beware: a cautionary tale from a medicinal chemist!
03 November 2008
Normally the slot guaranteed to send people to sleep, the delegates at the International Symposium on ALS/MND were certainly awake for Prof Chris Lipinski’s presentation in the straight-after-lunch slot on the first day of the meeting.
Prof Lipinski demonstrated the importance of consulting medicinal chemists as early as possible when MND researchers (who are mainly specialists in biological science) begin the journey of taking their promising chemicals from the laboratory to the clinic. The chemistry of the drug determines how easily it is absorbed into the body and how effective it is. Get within the right range for five key chemical properties of a drug he explained and there was a good chance that the drug would make it through to clinical trials.
So how do medicinal chemists spot a good drug from a bad one? Purely by recognising patterns! Prof Lipinski also put it down to learning from experience over years of coffee breaks. The structures of bad drugs are passed amongst fellow chemists – particularly supporting the researcher who has just had to break the bad news to their biologist colleague. Everyone else in the group secretly hopes that their collaborators never come up with similar structures!!
These words of warning seemed to have an effect on many of the speakers in the rest of this session on translational research. A few of them expressed their relief that their favourite drug had either been tested (and passed!) Prof Lipinski’s rule of five or else that they had spied their drug on a list that had passed the test in his presentation.
Prof Lipinski demonstrated the importance of consulting medicinal chemists as early as possible when MND researchers (who are mainly specialists in biological science) begin the journey of taking their promising chemicals from the laboratory to the clinic. The chemistry of the drug determines how easily it is absorbed into the body and how effective it is. Get within the right range for five key chemical properties of a drug he explained and there was a good chance that the drug would make it through to clinical trials.
So how do medicinal chemists spot a good drug from a bad one? Purely by recognising patterns! Prof Lipinski also put it down to learning from experience over years of coffee breaks. The structures of bad drugs are passed amongst fellow chemists – particularly supporting the researcher who has just had to break the bad news to their biologist colleague. Everyone else in the group secretly hopes that their collaborators never come up with similar structures!!
These words of warning seemed to have an effect on many of the speakers in the rest of this session on translational research. A few of them expressed their relief that their favourite drug had either been tested (and passed!) Prof Lipinski’s rule of five or else that they had spied their drug on a list that had passed the test in his presentation.
