Digital Platform for GPCR-specific drug discovery

To date, about 40% of drugs on the pharmaceutical market act on G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs). They represent the largest human protein family that is one of the main targets for the treatment of pathologies in cardiovascular system, central nervous system, lungs, gastrointestinal tract, as well as for the oncological diseases, and many others. Various GPCRs are similar to each other, for example, on the atomic level they share structure of seven transmembrane alpha-helical bundles, and on the functional level, they share the same signal propagation mechanism. As consequence drug candidates developed for a particular target also acts on another, off-target, GPCR, which may cause adverse side effects. Thus there is a great need in more selective and safer drugs acting on GPCRs. With the rapid progress in computational technologies and machine learning, our project aims to facilitate drug discovery by developing digital platform for GPCR-specific screening of drug candidates. Our platform will be interesting for the structure-based drug discovery conducted in pharmaceutical companies, as well as in academia.