LETS GET SPECIFIC - THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SPECIFICITY AND AFFINITY

The factors that lead to high-affinity binding are a good fit between the surfaces of the two molecules in their ground state and charge com plementarity. Exactly the same factors give high specificity for a tar get. We argue that selection for high-affinity binding automatically l eads to highly specific binding. This principle can be used to simplif y screening approaches aimed at generating useful drugs.