It has always been popular to start companies around families and subfamilies of targets, banking on the similarity among the receptors to speed drug discovery. But the idea largely hasn't panned out, in part because of the new target risk--sometimes they're not pharmaceutically relevant and sometimes they resist the available chemistries. That's why G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs) have been so important: they're clearly relevant (many, perhaps most, blockbusters come from this class of receptor) and their unique structure makes them both relatively easy to hit with ligands and likely to do something when hit. But the same structural advantages turn into scientific disadvantages for researchers: they resist screening and other techniques of modern drug discovery. We explore some of the newest approaches to mining this rich vein of opportunity.

The topic of longevity has fascinated explorers since long before Ponce de Leon went looking for the fountain of youth. Today's explorations involve the study of genes and metabolic pathways in organisms that for some unknown reason live longer than their peers.

Drug Discovery Tools; Genomics. LifeSpan has a high throughput analysis method by which it hopes to identify numerous genes related to diseases common to aging. Initially, the company is researching genes implicated in diseases that cause premature aging; Hutchinson-Gilford syndrome and Werner's syndrome.