生化信息学在药物创新过程中的重要作用

现代药物创新过程中产生大量实验数据,如基因序列信息、化学结构数据、生物活性指纹数据、基于基因或蛋白质等的微阵列(microarray)表达谱数据等.这些数据来源不同,类型不一,数量庞大,如何从中获取对药物研发人员有指导价值的信息是当前生物信息学和化学信息学工作者面临的难题之一.虽然生物学信息和化学信息有各自不同的特点,但它们之间可能存在某些相关性,只有将两类数据综合分析,才有可能发掘更多有价值的信息.生化信息学研究的是生物信息学与化学信息学的整合.本文讨论药物创新过程中如何整合并分析生物学数据和化学数据,为药物创新研究提供全面的信息学支持.

The important role of biochemoinformatics in drug discovery and development

The huge amounts of diverse data (such as sequence data,chemical structure infor-mation,biological activity patterns,and global expression profiles at molecular levels) are generated during drug discovery and development. Integrating and making sense of these data pose a unique chal-lenge to the scientific community. The distinct nature of biological and chemical information requires the integrated capability of both bioinformatics and chemoinformatics to decipher existing and hidden relationships. It is essential for researchers to effectively access the diverse types of data and to extract as much information as possible in order to make a well-informed decision during drug discovery. Biochemoinformatics is the integration of bioinformatics and chemoinformatics. The challenges and po-tential solutions to integrate and analyze biological and chemical information for drug discovery and development were discussed in this review.