Web resources for discovery and development of new medicines

Abstract

Modern drug discovery is based on the analysis of information about disease mechanisms, molecular targets, and pharmacological substances, the action of which helps to normalize pathological processes. Existing chemical and biomedical databases have recently been supplemented with many specialized computational resources that provide the means to estimate physicochemical properties, biological activity, toxicity, metabolism, and other characteristics of organic molecules in the early stages of drug development. Easy access to this information via the Internet expands significantly the opportunities for an investigator and, at the same time, poses the problem of selecting the information and computational resources most appropriate to the tasks at hand. This paper provides an overview of biomedical and chemical web resources freely available via the Internet and gives recommendations on their optimal use at various stages in the research and development of safer and more effective medicines.