Structure-based drug design strategies in medicinal chemistry.

A broad variety of medicinal chemistry approaches can be used for the identification of hits, generation of leads, as well as to accelerate the development of high quality drug candidates. Structure-based drug design (SBDD) methods are becoming increasingly powerful, versatile and more widely used. This review summarizes current developments in structure-based virtual screening and receptor-based pharmacophores, highlighting achievements as well as challenges, along with the value of structure-based lead optimization, with emphasis on recent examples of successful applications for the identification of novel active compounds.