Page "Drug discovery" Paragraph 2

classical pharmacology.

Since sequencing of the human genome which allowed rapid cloning and synthesis of large quantities of purified proteins, it has become common practice to use high throughput screening of large compounds libraries against isolated biological targets which are hypothesized to be disease modifying in a process known as reverse pharmacology.

Hits from these screens are then tested in cells and then in animals for efficacy.

Even more recently, scientists have been able to understand the shape of biological molecules at the atomic level, and to use that knowledge to design ( see drug design ) drug candidates.