Theory and applications of NMR-based screening in pharmaceutical research

Over the years, the advent of NMR-driven platforms have provided new pathways for inhibitor design against an increasing number of therapeutically relevant drug targets. This review covers both the theoretical and practical considerations for the most commonly used NMR-based screening approaches. First, the theoretical aspects of chemical exchange phenomena that lay at the foundation of NMR screening experiments are discussed. Second, a detailed description of commonly used ligand and receptor-based NMR approaches and their implementation in the laboratory is given. Finally, a framework based on common ligand design strategies is used to review examples of how NMR methods have been applied to generate and optimize new chemical classes of ligands for real drug targets.