Publication of the 125th issue of the "Lettre de l'Institut Pasteur": How are drugs designed?

The latest issue of the quarterly newsletter for Institut Pasteur donors – the "Lettre de l'Institut Pasteur" (LIP) – contains a special feature on drug design.

Remedies, ointments, potions – for thousands of years, various substances have been used to treat people with illnesses. Physicians drew on their experience to determine whether a given product would be effective in treating a given condition. This was the era of "empirical" medicine: no tests were carried out in advance, there was no assessment of the potentially toxic effects of the remedy and no knowledge of its mechanism of action. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the process of drug discovery became much more rational, and just a dozen synthetic products and around a hundred natural products were considered as "drugs."

At the Institut Pasteur, scientists investigate a wide range of diseases – not just infectious diseases but also cancer and neurodegenerative diseases. A detailed molecular-level understanding of these conditions can lead to strategies to identify molecules of therapeutic interest. Read this feature to find out more about the ongoing research, methods and teams in place at the Institut Pasteur to help design future drugs.

Browse the latest issue of the LIP online (in French)

Copies of this latest issue will be distributed on campus next week.

Please contact Flore Gaillard (flore.gaillard@pasteur.fr), if you require additional copies; previous issues can be seen on this page.