Molecular tools in drug research — translational medicine

The advent of high-throughput and increasingly sensitive research techniques in molecular biology in the last 20 years has altered fundamentally our understanding of molecular biology. The unraveling of the human genome has provided unprecedented insights into the molecular pathophysiology of diseases. DNA sequencing techniques allowed collecting huge amounts of genetic information, revealing genetic variation and variable expression of genes pinpointing to the molecular level of diseases. In parallel, analytical methods for evaluating large sets of proteins become available facilitating studies on the functional relevance of transient or stable expression of these molecules for a disease phenotype. These novel molecular techniques are nowadays at the heart of modern drug research as they allow identifying and validating novel molecular targets of disease, drug screening as well as the discovery of biomarkers for predicting and monitoring response to drug therapy.