Frontiers in nucleic acid-based drug research and development

Fundamental considerations in drug design

The drug discovery paradigm has been very time-consuming, challenging, and expensive; however, the disease conditions originating from bacteria, virus, protozoa, fungus and other microorganisms are steadily shooting up. For instance, COVID-19 is the latest viral infection that affects millions of people and the world’s economy very severely. Therefore, the quest for discovery of novel and potent drug compounds against deadly pathogens is crucial at the moment. Despite a lot of drawbacks in drug discovery and development and its pertaining technology, the advancement must be taken into account so the time duration and cost would be minimized. In this chapter, basic principles in drug design and discovery have been discussed together with advances in drug development.