BioCentury
ARTICLE | Emerging Company Profile

Kinetix: Structural themes

January 17, 2000 8:00 AM UTC

Members of any single family of enzymes in the body share a structural basis, a scaffold around which individual family member shapes vary. Kinetix Pharmaceuticals Inc. has taken advantage of the structural themes running through the kinase family of enzymes by creating a computational composite pharmacophore it can use to virtually screen small molecule compounds for activity before using more time-consuming and expensive in vitro assays.

Protein kinases are involved in controlling the growth activation and differentiation of cells and are selectively expressed in body tissues. Their improper function may contribute to autoimmune disorders such as arthritis and to cancer. Kinetix uses structure-based drug design and medicinal chemistry to molecularly decorate scaffolds that fit its computational model, thereby creating molecules with specific activity against individual kinase targets...