Drug Targets

Question 1

What is a drug ?

Answer 1

• a molecule that does not naturally occur in humans
• binds to a protein target
• stops the targets natural ligand/substrate from binding
• restores healthy homeostasis

Question 2

What do we mean when we say a drug is potent ?

Answer 2

• Energetically this means that there is a large delta negative when the drug binds to its target

Question 3

How do we measure drug potency ?

Answer 3

• potency is measured in units of concentration and often given the term IC50. This means the concentration of drug needed to reduce the activity of the target to 50% of its normal value .

So a high ic50 will mean that we need a high concentration of drug to reduce target activity but a low ic50 will mean that we dont need very much drug