Apic Gordana, Ignjatovic Tijana, Boyer Scott, Russell Robert B
Cambridge Cell Networks, William Gates Building, Cambridge CB3 0FD, UK.
FEBS Lett. 2005 Mar 21;579(8):1872-7. doi: 10.1016/j.febslet.2005.02.023.
Systems biology promises to impact significantly on the drug discovery process. One of its ultimate goals is to provide an understanding of the complete set of molecular mechanisms describing an organism. Although this goal is a long way off, many useful insights can already come from currently available information and technology. One of the biggest challenges in drug discovery today is the high attrition rate: many promising candidates prove ineffective or toxic owing to a poor understanding of the molecular mechanisms of biological systems they target. A "systems" approach can help identify pathways related to a disease and can suggest secondary effects of drugs that might cause these problems and thus ultimately improve the drug discovery pipeline.
系统生物学有望对药物发现过程产生重大影响。其最终目标之一是深入了解描述生物体的全套分子机制。尽管这一目标仍遥不可及，但目前可用的信息和技术已能带来许多有用的见解。当今药物发现面临的最大挑战之一是高损耗率：由于对所靶向生物系统的分子机制了解不足，许多有潜力的候选药物被证明无效或有毒。“系统”方法有助于识别与疾病相关的途径，并能提示可能导致这些问题的药物副作用，从而最终改进药物研发流程。
