The Quest for the Cure: The Science and Stories Behind the Next Generation of Medicines – Book Review

Modern medicine has immensely improved and in many cases dramatically changed our lives. Many diseases that have until relatively recently been considered incurable have been tackled and overcome. Mapping of the entire human genome at the beginning of the twenty-first century, as well as many novel techniques for developing and testing of the new drugs, have all contributed to the sense that even greater medical breakthroughs are just around the corner. However, this promise has remained not much more than hype. In fact, truly new medicinal drugs are becoming more and more rare, and the time between their development and when they hit the market is ever increasing.

This book aims to give the reader an idea what are drugs from a molecular point of view, and how they affect our bodies. Drugs are relatively small molecules that bind to specific cell proteins and change their function. Coming up with the right kind of small molecule that would do the job is immensely difficult. There is an innumerable amount of potential drug candidates, and choosing the right ones is as much of an art as it is science. Even so, there is a very real possibility that the vast majority of proteins might be “undruggable,” i.e. there are no small molecules that would bind to them. The book explores these possibility in some detail, and it offers possible alternative approaches to drugs that could go around the current impediments.

The book is a great mixture of science, medical technology, and business. It provides invaluable insights into the development of new drugs, and the limitations of the current approaches. It also introduces the reader to the world of medical research startups, and the way that these small companies are redefining the drug discovery business.

There have been quite a few books in recent years about the new advances in biotechnology and genetics, but most of them don’t provide much in terms of new insight and truly novel information. This book is one of those rare gems that are simultaneously exceedingly readable, as well as do justice to science. After reading it I know quite a bit more about drugs than I did before.

 

Bojan Tunguz

Bojan Tunguz was born in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which he and his family fled during the civil war for the neighboring Croatia. Over the past two decades he has studied, lived and worked in the United States. He is a theoretical physicist with degrees from Stanford and University of Illinois. Tunguz has taught physics at several prominent liberal arts colleges and has been writing about physics, science and technology for more than a decade. He also has a wide spectrum of interests, and reads and writes about current events, society, culture, religion and politics. Over the years he has reviewed many of the books that he has read, and posted his reviews on various online outlets. In 2011 he had become a top 10 reviewer on Amazon.com, where he continues to be very active. Aside from reading and writing, Tunguz enjoys traveling, digital photography, hiking, and fitness. He resides with his wife in Indiana. You can follow my review updates on the following pages as well: Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/tunguzreview Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/tunguzreviews Google+: https://plus.google.com/u/0/104312842297641697463/posts

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