Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Preface
- Section one Overviews
- Chapter 1 Harnessing the Power of Chemistry for Biology and Medicine
- Chapter 2 Exploring Biology with Small Organic Molecules
- Chapter 3 Chemical Proteomics: A Global Study of Protein–Small Molecule Interactions
- Section two Molecules for Chemical Genomics
- Section Three Basics of High-Throughput Screening
- Section Four Chemical Genomics Assays and Screens
- Section five Chemical Genomics and Medicine
- Index
- References
Chapter 2 - Exploring Biology with Small Organic Molecules
from Section one - Overviews
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Preface
- Section one Overviews
- Chapter 1 Harnessing the Power of Chemistry for Biology and Medicine
- Chapter 2 Exploring Biology with Small Organic Molecules
- Chapter 3 Chemical Proteomics: A Global Study of Protein–Small Molecule Interactions
- Section two Molecules for Chemical Genomics
- Section Three Basics of High-Throughput Screening
- Section Four Chemical Genomics Assays and Screens
- Section five Chemical Genomics and Medicine
- Index
- References
Summary
From Chemical Genetics to Chemical Genomics
Small molecules have long been recognized as an invaluable part of human medicine. Well before chemistry, biology, and chemical genomics were established as scientific disciplines, people routinely used plants to treat and prevent illnesses. Not until the advent of modern science, however, were we able to isolate and identify the active ingredients that conferred on the flora around us such a vast array of effects. Along with synthetic and semisynthetic molecules, these naturally occurring compounds have formed the cornerstone of today's therapeutics and have provided a way of improving our understanding of fundamental biological processes.
Exploration of these processes using chemical genetics requires certain basic elements common to all studies: 1) a small molecule with good target specificity, 2) a protein of interest, 3) a phenotype that is being investigated, and 4) an assay or screen that will bring these elements together to provide useful information (Figure 2.1).
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Chemical Genomics , pp. 10 - 25Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2012