Gerhard Klebe is Professor of Pharmaceutical Chemistry at Philipps-Universität Marburg. He retired in April 2020. His research focuses on structure-activity relationships, 3D-QSAR methods, conformational and pharmacophore analyses, docking methods, database analyses, protein crystallography, structure-based drug design and the biophysical characterisation of protein-ligand interactions. Before his appointment in Marburg, he taught at the University of Heidelberg and worked in the main laboratory of BASF AG in Ludwigshafen in the field of drug design and crystallography.

Preface.- Introduction.- Part I Fundamentals of drug research.- 1 Drug research yesterday, today, tomorrow.- 2 In the beginning there was serendipity.- 3 Examples of classical drug research.- 4 Protein-ligand interactions as the basis of drug action.- 5 Optical activity and biological action.- Part II The search for lead structure.- 6 The classical search for lead structure.- 7 Screening technologies for lead structure search.- 8 The optimisation of lead structure.- 9 The design of prodrugs.- 10 Peptidomimetics. 6 The classical search for lead structure.- 7 Screening technologies for lead structure search.- 8 Lead structure optimisation.- 9 Design of prodrugs.- 10 Peptidomimetics.Part III Experimental and theoretical methods.- 11 Combinatorics: chemistry with large numbers.- 12 Genetic engineering in drug discovery.- 13 Experimental methods for structure elucidation.- 14 Description of the structure of biomolecules.- 15 Molecular modelling.- 16 Conformational analysis.- Part IV Quantitative structure-activity relationships and design methods.- 17 Pharmacophore hypotheses, molecular comparisons and database searches.- 18 Quantitative structure-activity relationships.- 19 From in vitro to in vivo: optimising ADME tox properties.- 20 Protein modelling and structure-based drug design.- 21 An example: structure-based design of inhibitors of tRNA-guanine transglycosylase.- Part V Successes in rational drug design.- 22 How drugs work: targets for therapy.- 23 Inhibitors for hydrolases with acyl enzyme intermediates.- 24 Inhibitors of aspartyl proteases.- 25 Inhibitors of hydrolytically cleaving metalloenzymes.- 26 Inhibitors for transferases.- 27 Inhibitors for oxidoreductases.- 28 Agonists and antagonists for nuclear receptors.- 29 Agonists and antagonists of membrane receptors.- 30 Ligands for channels, pores and transporters.- 31 Ligands for surface receptors.- 32 Biopharmaceuticals: peptides, proteins, nucleotides and macrolides as active substances.