Characterizing Targets in Model Organisms

Getting useful data from model organisms is often laborious, but new strategies and technologies are helping. On the long road from finding a new molecule in a cell to putting a pill in a bottle, one of the main obstacles is validating the target in model organisms. In essence, this consists of inactivating or stimulating the target in the cells of a live animal and seeing whether that produces the desired effect. But in drug development, as in marksmanship, seeing a target is the easy part—hitting it is hard. Like so much of modern drug development, the concept only sounds simple. Live animals are far more difficult to control and study than individual cells, and even the most straightforward questions about a target can be maddeningly difficult to answer. Using a range of intriguing new technologies, though, several research groups are starting to address some of the field's biggest challenges. Phenotypes are the central issue in target validation: What is the model organism's normal biology and how does inactivating the target change that? Unfortunately, although molecular biology revolutionized the way researchers study genotypes, phenotyping remains a vague science where even seemingly simple questions remain unanswered. Compounding the problem, advances in medical imaging have enabled physicians to diagnose and study human diseases ... "Source":[ http://www.keepmedia.com/pubs/DrugDiscoveryDevelopment/2005/11/01/1084122?ba=m&bi=4&bp=13].

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