Since the publication of the first edition, the field has changed dramatically. Scientists can now explicitly consider 3D features in quantitative structure-activity relationship (QSAR) studies and often have the 3D structure of the macromolecular target to guide the 3D QSAR. Improvements in computer hardware and software have also made the methods

This book brings together drug design practitioners, all leaders in their field, who are actively advancing the field of quantitative methods to guide drug discovery, from structure-based design to empirical statistical models - from rule-based approaches to toxicology to the fields of bioinformatics and systems biology. The aim of the book is to show how various facets of the drug discovery process can be addressed in a quantitative fashion (ie: numerical analysis to enable robust predictions to be made). Each chapter includes a brief review of the topic showing the historical development of.

Quantitative structure-activity relationships (QSARs) represent predictive models derived from the application of statistical tools correlating biological activity or other properties of chemicals with descriptors representative of molecular structure and/or property. Quantitative Structure-Activity Relationships in Drug Design, Predictive Toxicology, and Risk Assessment discusses recent advancements in the field of QSARs with special reference to their application in drug development, predictive toxicology, and chemical risk analysis. Focusing on emerging research in the field, this book is an ideal reference source for industry professionals, students, and academicians in the fields of medicinal chemistry and toxicology.

This book brings together drug design practitioners, all leaders in their field, who are actively advancing the field of quantitative methods to guide drug discovery, from structure-based design to empirical statistical models - from rule-based approaches to toxicology to the fields of bioinformatics and systems biology. The aim of the book is to show how various facets of the drug discovery process can be addressed in a quantitative fashion (ie: numerical analysis to enable robust predictions to be made). Each chapter includes a brief review of the topic showing the historical development of quantitative approaches, a survey/summary of the current state-of-the-art, a selection of well chosen examples with some worked through and an appreciation of what problems remain to be overcome as well as an indication of how the field may develop. After an overview of quantitative approaches to drug design the book describes the development of concepts of "drug-like properties", of quantitative structure-activity relationships and molecular modelling, and in particular, structure-based design approaches to guide lead optimisation. How to manage and describe chemical structures, underpins all quantitative approaches to drug design and these are described in the following chapters. The next chapter covers the value of a quantitative approach, and also the challenge which is to describe the confidence in any prediction, and methods to assess predictive model quality. The later chapters describe the application of quantitative approaches to describing and optimising potency, selectivity, drug metabolism and pharmacokinetic properties and toxicology, and the design of chemical libraries to feed the screening approaches to lead generation that underpin modern drug discovery. Finally the book describes the impact of bioinformatics, current status of predicting ligand affinity direct from the protein structure, and the application of quantitative approaches to predicting environmental risk. The book provides a summary of the current state-of-the-art in quantitative approaches to drug design, and future opportunities, but it also provides inspiration to drug design practitioners to apply careful design, to make best use of the quantitative methods that are available, while continuing to improve them. Drug discovery still relies heavily on random screening and empirical screening cascades to identify leads and drugs and the process has many failures to deliver only a small handful of drugs. With the rapidly escalating costs of drug discovery and development together with spiralling delivery, quantitative approaches hold the promise of shifting the balance of success, to enable drug discovery to maintain its economic viability.

Based on topics presented at the Annual Japanese (Quantitative) Structure-Activity Relationship Symposium and the Biennial China-Japan Drug Design and Development conference, the topics in this volume cover almost every procedure and subdiscipline in the SAR discipline. They are categorized in three sections. Section one includes topics illustrating newer methodologies relating to ligand-receptor, molecular graphics and receptor modelling as well as the three-dimensional (Q)SAR examples with the active analogue approach and the comparative molecular field analysis. In section 2 the hydrophobicity parameters, log P (1-octanol/water) for compound series of medicinal-chemical interest are analysed physico-organic chemically. Section 3 contains the examples based on the traditional Hansch QSAR approach. A variety of methodologies and procedures are presented in this single volume, along with their methodological philosophies.