NMR methods in fragment based drug discovery

Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, owing to its ability to provide atomic level information on molecular structure, dynamics and interaction, has become one of the most powerful methods in early drug discovery where hit finding and hit-to-lead generation are mainly pursued. In recent years, drug discovery programs originating from the fragment-based drug discovery (FBDD) strategies have been widely incorporated into academia and industry in which a wide variety of NMR methods become an indispensable arsenal to elucidate the binding of small molecules onto bimolecular targets. In this review, I briefly describe FBDD and introduce NMR methods mainly used in FBDD campaigns of my company. In addition, quality control of fragment library and practical NMR methods in industrial aspect are discussed shortly.