Anti-Tuberculosis Drug Design

The focus of the pharmaceutical industry has shifted from the trial-and-error process of drug discovery to a rational, structure-based drug design. A successful and reliable drug design process could reduce the time and cost of developing useful pharmacological agents. Globally today, tuberculosis (TB), AIDS, and malaria are the most threatening diseases known to mankind and current treatment regimens are undermined by poor long-term effects and high costs. The effectiveness of available treatment is mainly reduced due to the emergence of drug-resistant microbial strains, which urge for the development of new and improved drugs. The present book describes the attempts that have been made towards finding the key target proteins required for the operation of the peptidoglycan pathway of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, predicting the 3-D structure of those identified protein targets and finally designing the inhibitors with broad spectrum and good potential as anti-tuberculosis drugs in order to combat the devastating disease TB.