It is the objective of this meeting to focus on the most exciting new technologies, trends and potential success stories in novel areas of drug discovery. Rather than providing broad reviews of general fields or company overviews, the meeting is intended to provide new scientific achievements in the area of biomedical and pharmaceutical research. The meeting will include new breakthroughs in the following areas: New approaches to the discovery of small molecules; The impact of genomics and proteomics on drug discovery; Emerging target classes; and New drug candidates. ? ? In the first part of the meeting, the focus will be on the ways in which structural, computational and combinatorial approaches have improved our ability to design small molecules, both in terms of speed and quality. The session on genomics will provide information on the latest advances in these fields and their impact on our understanding of the biology emerging from the human genome project. The ability of these technologies to aid in the identification of attractive new drug targets will be assessed. ? ? The majority of small molecule drugs reaching the market have focused on a very limited set of target classes (GPCRs, proteases etc). The third session will focus on newly emerging target classes and the progress that is being made to bring molecules from these classes through to the clinic. The final session will assess the progress that is being made on some of the most exciting targets being focused on within drug discovery. The lessons which can be learned from the hard won experience of this work will be reviewed. ? ? ?
