Computer Aided Drug Design in Industrial Research

Book excerpt: The Ernst Schering Research Foundation sponsored its 15th workshop in Berlin on October 19-21, 1994. Leading scientists from Europe and North America were invited to discuss computer-aided drug design in industrial research. Computer-aided drug design is a very exciting field and an intellec tual challenge, like playing chess. But these reasons are no longer suf ficient to justify using this method in industry, if they ever were. Fig. 1. The participants of the workshop VI Preface Therefore, when we, together with Prof. Hoyer, started to think about this workshop, our intentions quickly became clear. We were not so much interested in the very latest developments of methods or in computer-aided drug design itself - enough conferences have dealt with these topics. However, we were very interested in the usefulness and limitations of computer-aided drug design in the indu strial research process. A lot has changed in the pharmaceutical industry recently. These changes are gaining momentum, so it is the right time to think about the role of computer-aided drug design in this changing environment.