Cryo-EM accelerates drug discovery by delivering previously intractable structural insights

Cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM), a powerful biophysical technique that can analyse molecular assemblies, is changing the paradigm in structure-based drug design.

As targets become more challenging, solving structures of drug target molecules or biologics becomes increasingly difficult. Cryo-EM empowers drug discovery teams to take advantage of rational drug design for many more major drug target classes, opening a pathway to best-in-class drugs.

Cryo-EM allows the structural analysis of protein complexes flash-frozen in their near native states. One can now directly visualise not just large macromolecules, but also smaller proteins complexes, including membrane proteins. This powerful technique can be used to complement traditional methods, such as X-ray crystallography (XRD) or nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) for structure-based drug discovery.

By Hans Raaijmakers, Dr Mazdak Radjainia, Dr Hervé-William Remigy, and Aleksandar Stefanovic

Related Articles

Join FREE today and become a member
of Drug Discovery World

Membership includes:

  • Full access to the website including free and gated premium content in news, articles, business, regulatory, cancer research, intelligence and more.
  • Unlimited App access: current and archived digital issues of DDW magazine with search functionality, special in App only content and links to the latest industry news and information.
  • Weekly e-newsletter, a round-up of the most interesting and pertinent industry news and developments.
  • Whitepapers, eBooks and information from trusted third parties.
Join For Free