Identifying the biological origin of a disease, and the potential targets for intervention, is the first step in the discovery of a medicine. More an art than a science, target identification is grounded in a number of different approaches and technologies, many of which are used in Roche research and early development.

Facts and figures

Paul Ehrlich (1854 – 1915)

Received the Nobel Price for Physiology and Medicine 1908. He developed the term ‘magic bullet’.

The 'magic bullet'

A chemical substance can selectively affect physiological processes in the body. A ‘magic bullet’ is a substance that can seek out and kill the disease causing agents only.

Protein

Practically every medicine is interacting with a protein target, either boosting or inhibiting its fuction. It is estimated that there are two million proteins in the human body.

Different approaches

Roche has many different approaches to looking for drug targets: phenotypic screening, gene association studies, chemo proteomics, transgenetic organisms, imaging, biomarkers and many other methods.

Pharmacology

Translates laboratory and animal data into clinical trials. When a compound enters the clinic and is evaluated for the first time in humans, clinical pharmacology is the science that designs and analyses the clinical studies.

Target validation

Validation is a crucial step in the drug discovery process. The only way to be completely certain that a protein is instrumental in a given disease is to test the idea in clinical trials.

Today, we have only scratched the surface in terms of the drugs available on the market. But within a foreseeable future there will be many mechanisms known and many targets identified for which drugs will be under development.
Once you have understood the molecular mechanism of a disease, you basically have a clue or an avenue towards a test and a therapy. But in the future, the two will go together: the diagnostic to identify the molecular mechanism for the patient together with the drug that is treating the molecular mechanism of the disease.
Dr. Jo Bury Managing Direct VIB (VIB: Flemish Institute for Biotechnology), Belgium

Meet the scientist: Hendrik Knoetgen

Hendrik leads a team of scientists at Roche in Penzberg, Germany. As part of pRED, his team focuses on lead identification—an early step in the drug development process.