Targeting biological activity

One impact of genomics has been a shift in drug discovery from an emphasis on biological activity to an emphasis on targets. Perhaps the best example of this is in the antibiotic arena, where investigators have had microbial genomes mapped for a relatively long time, and have been busy ferreting out essential genes.

However, target-based discovery has yet to provide clinically useful antibiotics. So to increase the odds of success, researchers at Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. and GlaxoSmithKline plc are doing what needed to be done all along, merging biological activity with target-based discovery...