
Target Discovery & Validation
Identification of a target is the first step in the drug discovery and development pipeline. In this stage, disease-relevant factors are identified, explored, characterized, and validated to assess their value as drug targets. These factors can include proteins, protein complexes, DNA and RNA molecules, and other biomolecules.
This process requires a global understanding of disease biology, as well as relevant model systems. As part of these efforts, scientists must also evaluate the feasibility of different therapeutic modalities to determine how best to interfere with disease processes. This stage of the drug discovery process involves the synthesis of diverse data, often from a variety of experiments or sources, in order to comprehensively characterize the biological landscape and inform subsequent research efforts.

