Practical Fragments

Kelch-like ECH-associated protein 1 (KEAP1) binds to nuclear factor erythroid 2-related factor 2 (NRF2), targeting it for degradation. Block...

The ten human fatty-acid binding proteins (FABPs) shuttle lipids around cells. As we noted several years ago, FABP4 and FABP5 are potential...

Although 2020 and 2021 were baleful exceptions, tuberculosis is normally the world’s deadliest infectious disease. The pathogen Mycobacteriu...

Last week we highlighted a new tool to computationally predict whether a molecule might aggregate, thereby causing false positives. This do...

Among the many types of artifacts that can fool screens and derail efforts to find leads, small colloidally aggregating molecules (SCAMs) a...

Three years ago we highlighted a growing debate about how and where to house crystallographic fragment data. With the recent surge in high-...

As we noted in our thousandth post , covalent drugs are becoming increasingly popular, particularly for tackling tough targets. But finding ...

For better or for worse, 2025 is half-way over. There are still some good conferences coming up, and 2026 is also starting to take shape. Se...

Driven by the spectacular success of diabetes and obesity drugs, metabolism is a hot therapeutic area. Much of the focus has been on GPCRs s...

Two weeks ago we discussed how to find ligand-binding sites in RNA. Last week we wrote about how difficult it is to find good ligands even...

Last week we highlighted work suggesting that small molecule binding sites in RNA are most likely to be found in complex structures. A new ...

Most drugs bind to proteins, but RNA provides many interesting targets. Unfortunately, finding drug-like small molecules that bind to RNA is...

Back in 2012 we wrote about GDB-17, a database of possible small molecules having up to 17 carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, sulfur, and halogen at...

At FBLD 2024 , Frank von Delft (Diamond Light Source) announced the ambitious goal of taking a 100 µM binder to a 10 nM lead in less than a ...

At the Drug Discovery Chemistry meeting last month chemist John Taylor described efforts against the oncology target RAS. This story was re...

Last week we highlighted a protein-detected NMR method that does not require expensive and sometimes difficult isotopic labeling of protein...

Protein-detected NMR was the first practical approach for finding fragments , and as we noted last week some still consider it the gold sta...

Last week’s CHI Drug Discovery Chemistry (DDC) meeting was held as usual in San Diego. More than 850 people attended, 96% in person, with 7...