A medicine's potency often depends on the concentration of its active ingredient (API) at the target site. Medicines are usually delivered remotely to this target site, however. The API must first dissolve and traverse local barriers such as the intestinal wall before it can enter the bloodstream and then reach its target site. For a long time, work in this area was guided by the dogma that API diffusion was the force driving absorption by the body...

For medical research in the 21st century, regenerative medicine offers one of the most promising futures and prospects for further development. Revolutionary results have already been achieved by the efforts of genetic engineering, although ethical and regulatory aspects mean that such methods are unlikely to see widespread deployment.

A complementary approach is now being pursued by the application of small-molecule ­compounds: a rapidly growing...

The massive growth of compound activity data provides opportunities and challenges for medicinal chemistry. Conventional approaches for the analysis of structure-­activity relationships (SARs) are not suitable for the exploration and exploitation of this unprecedented knowledge base. Recently, new computational methodologies have been introduced for large-scale SAR analysis that put emphasis on visualization to provide an intuitive access to complex...