Novel search engine matches molecules in a flash

Potential drugs could be identified very rapidly using a novel method for matching molecular shapes.
The technique uses the relative position of the atoms in a molecule to quickly match molecules of a similar shape. This is a crucial step in modern drug discovery, since similarly shaped molecules are like to have similar bioactive effects, such as being able to bind to the same protein, triggering a similar medicinal effect in the human body. Currently, the most common way to find the 3D shape of a particular molecule within a database is to superimpose a candidate over the query molecule and see how much of it overlaps. But this is time consuming, partly because it requires both molecules to be precisely aligned…Luis von Ahn, an image analysis expert at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, US, adds that the demand for such technology could soon extend beyond molecules. “Being able to match 3D objects is an important problem that might become even more important as we get more and more 3D models of our world – such as Google earth,” he told New Scientist.

Source: New Scientist

This entry was posted on Friday, March 2nd, 2007 and is filed under Info Management and Retrieval, Information Science, Search News, Search Tools. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.