Bioinformatics-Based Drug Discovery for Protein Kinases

Protien kinases have been implicated in a number of diseases, where kinases participate many aspects that control cell growth, movement and death. The deregulated kinase activities and the knowledge of these disorders is of great clinical interest of drug discovery. The most critical issue is the development of safe and efficient disease diagnosis and treatment for less cost and in less time. It is important to develop innovative approaches that aim at the root cause of a disease, not just its symptoms. Bioinformatics including genetic, genomic and computational technologies, has become the most promising option for effective drug discovery, and has showed its potential in early stage of drug-target identification and target validation. It is essential that these aspects are understood and integrated into new methods used in drug discovery for diseases arisen from deregulated kinase activity. This chapter reviews bioinformatics techniques for protein kinase data management and analysis, kinase pathways and drug targets and describes their potential application in pharmaceutical industry.