At the core of Smart Allostery™ is the ability to systematically identify the myriad of naturally-occurring mechanisms used to control protein function and then rationally design novel drugs targeting the associated pockets. We call these pockets natural hotspots due to the decisive role they play in cellular protein regulation.
have been identified containing natural hotspots that control protein function.
Natural hotspots have intrinsic characteristics that have made them hard for industry to drug, explaining why these pockets remain largely unexploited. Natural hotspots are:
Out of the many pockets in a protein, few are decisive in protein function, and many are not visible in crystal structures. Our technology uncovers hidden pockets and identifies the sites that drive protein function.
Natural hotspots are not present in certain protein conformations, reducing the likelihood that chemical screening campaigns will succeed. A specialized pharmacology and in silico toolkit is required to identify compounds that bind these pockets.
Existing chemical libraries built around active sites are poorly aligned with the pharmacological footprint of natural hotspots. To successfully drug natural hotspots, new chemical scaffolds are required, powered by advanced computational science.
We believe our Smart Allostery™ platform is the first technology platform designed to systematically identify natural hotspots and enable the design of potent, selective, allosteric modulators. We integrate insights from biology, computational sciences, chemistry and biophysics to systematically identify and drug natural hotspots.
