MICROCALORIMETRY IN THE SCREENING OF DISCOVERY COMPOUNDS AND IN THE INVESTIGATION OF NOVEL DRUG-DELIVERY SYSTEMS

Calorimetry has for some time been proposed as a rapid method for dete rmination of bioactivity. This paper describes the background to this application and describes how it has been extended to the study of bio assay techniques via microcalorimetry in the development of structure activity relationships (sARs). That sARs can be developed indicates th at it is possible to guide drug synthetic strategy through the results of microcalorimetric investigations, and this approach is explored he re. In an extension of this approach it is argued that microcalorimetr y is well suited to the examination of novel drug delivery systems, al lowing investigation of the capacity of drug delivery molecules to rel ease the drug in the presence of a target organism.