Skeletal Editing Could Help Medical Chemists Screen for Drug-Like Activity

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Light-emitting diodes that emit specific wavelengths of light can trigger precise edits. Skeletal editing could also assist in the earlier stages of drug discovery, helping medicinal chemists access a broader range of molecules to screen for drug-like activity. But even the most enthusiastic proponents of skeletal editing concede that there are many obstacles to routine use.

In the past two years, there has been an explosion in the number of papers published relating to 'skeletal editing', a technique that allows chemists to precisely edit a molecule by deleting, adding or swapping single atoms in its core.

Although many of these methods are early in development, researchers hope skeletal editing could revolutionize how organic chemists design molecules, dramatically speeding up the drug-discovery process.

This is an audio version of our Feature: ‘Almost magical’: chemists can now move single atoms in and out of a molecule’s core

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