Therapeutics

In drug discovery, two major types of treatments are peptide therapeutics and small-molecule therapeutics. These are especially relevant for deep learning applications, as both involve designing and optimizing molecules to interact with specific targets.

Peptide-based therapeutics:

Peptide-based drug discovery involves designing peptides that can effectively bind to a target, such as a protein involved in disease. One key challenge is improving the affinity—or strength—of the binding. This is done by modifying peptides to enhance their stability, selectivity, and binding performance.

Small – molecule therapeutics:

Small-molecule drug discovery starts with combining chemical structures and elements to form potential drug candidates. These molecules are then refined through target selection and validation, hit identification, lead generation, profiling, and optimization before advancing to clinical trials.