From genes to effective drugs for neurological and psychiatric diseases

The description of the human genome sequence represents a major step toward s complete understanding of human biology and disease mechanisms. The impac t on drug discovery will not be immediate because even the almost complete list of putative drug targets provided by the genome sequence does not impr ove our ability to select and validate targets, the real bottlenecks in dru g discovery and development. In neuroscience, the impact wilt be through th e completion of lists of likely drug targets, such as G-protein-coupled rec eptors and ion channels, th e advancements in identifying disease genes, an d, in combination with mRNA or protein array technologies, the identificati on of systems affected in intricate diseases such as depression and schizop hrenia. The genome sequence data will also help to identify transporters th at regulate drug access to the brain. The surprisingly small number of gene s and putative drug targets is likely to increase the competition over inte llectual property.