Drug development over the past few decades has benefited the basic research community by generating new chemical and biological probes that have had a huge impact on regulating many biological processes and understanding disease mechanisms. This progress has even led to several clinically approved anti-cancer drugs for some challenging targets once considered undruggable.

One notable example that has made significant strides in the field of oncology is the recent development of the covalent and non-covalent inhibitors of cancer-causing KRAS mutations. Despite these noteworthy successes, many disease-associated targets are difficult to drug, and pharmacological modulation of these intractable targets remains challenging in drug development.

Advances in chemical and biological tools have expanded the horizons and enabled the targeting of molecular programs, cellular components, and phenotypes that were once thought unattainable. Rather than considering these targets undruggable, it would be beneficial to adopt a perspective that considers them areas of biology merely “not yet drugged.” This shift in mindset has the potential to significantly impact both basic biological investigations and therapeutics development, opening up new avenues for research and the discovery of novel treatments.

In this Cell Symposium, we aim to highlight this shift in the field and bring together researchers from diverse disciplines to discuss the current state of and future opportunities in the chemical-biology-medicine continuum, with a goal of advancing drug discovery and development.

We hope you can join us in San Francisco to contribute to transformative advances in the following topics of chemical biology.

Topics include:

• Expanding the druggable proteome
• Emerging proximity-based drug discovery
• Immuno-oncology: targeting tumor microenvironment
• Nucleic-acid-based therapeutics
• Biosensors and biological imaging tools
  
  

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