Today, however, for less than a tenth of that cost, researchers can obtain molecular modeling software with high-resolution graphics. These packages can compute and illustrate the structure of molecules from any angle, perform quantum mechanical calculations, calculate a wide range of molecular properties, and identify structure-activity relationships. Molecular modeling programs are proving invaluable to chemists, bio- chemists, pharmacologists, virologists, molecular biologists, and other researchers interested in simulating interactions of important molecules in order to study the relationships of structure to activity.
William C. Ripka, vice president of pharmaceutical research at San Diego-based Corvas Biopharm-aceuticals Inc., a small company that develops therapies to combat thrombosis, works closely with the molecular modeling software Corvas uses in drug development research. According to Ripka, even though the marketplace has seen the introduction of an increasing number of competing products, the category must continue to expand in order to satisfy the needs of today's scientists ...
