Kong De-Xin, Li Xue-Juan, Zhang Hong-Yu
Shandong Provincial Research Center for Bioinformatic Engineering and Technique, Shandong University of Technology, Zibo 255049, PR China.
Drug Discov Today. 2009 Feb;14(3-4):115-9. doi: 10.1016/j.drudis.2008.07.002. Epub 2008 Aug 21.
For drug discovery, historical experience is always of significance. Through examining the history of traditional medicines, we find that these medicines have more implications for drug discovery than just providing new chemical entities. The history of traditional medicines indicates that they depended more on the combination of natural agents than on screening new agents to find new remedies. This phenomenon suggests that shifting the current drug discovery paradigm from 'finding new-entity drugs' to 'combining existing agents' may be helpful for overcoming the 'more investment, fewer drugs' challenge. We show that clues to finding antidementia combinatorial drugs can be derived from traditional medicine formulae. It seems that to create a brighter future of drug discovery, we would better go back to history.
对于药物研发而言，历史经验始终具有重要意义。通过审视传统药物的历史，我们发现这些药物对药物研发的意义远不止于提供新的化学实体。传统药物的历史表明，它们更多地依赖天然药物的组合，而非通过筛选新药物来寻找新疗法。这一现象表明，将当前的药物研发模式从“寻找新实体药物”转变为“组合现有药物”，可能有助于应对“投入更多、药物更少”的挑战。我们表明，寻找抗痴呆组合药物的线索可以从传统中药方剂中获得。为了创造药物研发更光明的未来，我们似乎最好回归历史。
