Drug discovery is the overarching theme of the Dolle laboratory. We design and synthesize novel molecular probes and small molecule ligands to aid in the understanding of the mechanistic pathophysiology of human diseases. We identify drug leads through high-throughput screening and other means. Using medicinal chemistry and computational chemistry, drug leads are optimized for potency, target selectivity, pharmacokinetics, in vivo pharmacology, and safety to yield proprietary clinical drug candidates. Lead optimization creates variations of the original drug and tests for better performance against a range of biological endpoints (generating structure-activity relationships). Because the principles of drug design are applicable to any molecular target, our discovery programs tackle drugs for enzymes, proteases, kinases, receptors, transporters, ion channels, transcription factors, RNA - transcending anti-infective, cardiovascular, gastroenterology, neurology (CNS), oncology, and allied therapeutic areas. Our laboratory’s expertise and capability to identify and optimize drug leads provides a strong basis for collaboration with Washington University researchers.