Practical Fragments

Halogen bonds (or X-bonds) are one of the less appreciated protein-ligand interactions. As we discussed in 2022, the polarized nature of a ...

Last week we wrote about the magical properties chlorine can impart to molecules. More generally, halogen atoms can be helpful for a variet...

More than a decade ago we highlighted a paper that discussed “magic methyl” groups, which can boost the affinity of a ligand for a protein ...

Halogen bonding is an esoteric type of molecular interaction. Any first-year chemistry student can tell you that halogens are electronegati...

What do fragment hits look like, and how do they bind? Fabrizio Giordanetto, David Shaw, and colleagues at D. E. Shaw Research were interes...

A couple weeks ago we highlighted a small fragment collection (MiniFrags) designed for crystallographic screening. We continue the theme t...

The use of brominated fragments for X-ray screening is well known; it was the basis for former company SGX (now part of Lilly).  The purpor...