How many potential drugs are there?

[tryp2fun]

Exploring Chemical Space for Drug Discovery Using the Chemical Universe Database

Jean-Louis Reymond* and Mahendra Awale
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Berne, Freiestrasse 3, 3012 Berne, Switzerland
ACS Chem. Neurosci., Article ASAP
DOI: 10.1021/cn3000422
Publication Date (Web): April 25, 2012

Herein we review our recent efforts in searching for bioactive ligands by enumeration and virtual screening of the unknown chemical space of small molecules. Enumeration from first principles shows that almost all small molecules (>99.9%) have never been synthesized and are still available to be prepared and tested. We discuss open access sources of molecules, the classification and representation of chemical space using molecular quantum numbers (MQN), its exhaustive enumeration in form of the chemical universe generated databases (GDB), and examples of using these databases for prospective drug discovery. MQN-searchable GDB, PubChem, and DrugBank are freely accessible at www.gdb.unibe.ch.

The authors estimate in this paper that there are about 10⁶⁰ possible drug small molecules that can be synthesized. Only about 60 million chemical compounds have been synthesized so far. The number of possible drugs is larger than the number of stars in the known universe. Even if only 1% of them are psychoactive, that should keep Congress and the DEA busy for quite a while writing new drug laws.

 

[endotropic]

There's an estimated 10^22 - 10^23 stars in the universe. Let's just pull a number out of a hat and say that for every possible small molecule drug, 1 out of every 10^30th is a psychoactive recreational drug (and that's probably a huge underestimate). With these estimates there are still more possible recreational drugs than stars in the universe.

 

[AlphaOdure]

that should keep Congress and the DEA busy for quite a while writing new drug laws.

Ha! Interesting read! Another shocking foreshadowing of the complete failure of prohibition. & even more of a reason to bring psychoactive drugs under the umbrella of regulation & oversight, making them available OTC to varying extents (although a "grey market" would still undoubtedly still persist for "newer" chemicals).. rather than ceding drugs to a completely illicit, underground market; funding intercontinental drug organizations. We have ~5% of the world's population but consume around ~20% (last time i checked) of the world's illicit drugs. But then again, a balance must be made too- outright, complete libertarian policies towards selling & consumption of drugs wouldn't help much either. The legal heroin programs of Europe, Switzerland especially, are promising models... but, this really would only work here in the context of a universal healthcare system.

....sorry to get a bit off topic <end derailment>

 

[tryp2fun]

Ha! Interesting read! Another shocking foreshadowing of the complete failure of prohibition. & even more of a reason to bring psychoactive drugs under the umbrella of regulation & oversight, making them available OTC to varying extents (although a "grey market" would still undoubtedly still persist for "newer" chemicals).. rather than ceding drugs to a completely illicit, underground market; funding intercontinental drug organizations. We have ~5% of the world's population but consume around ~20% (last time i checked) of the world's illicit drugs. But then again, a balance must be made too- outright, complete libertarian policies towards selling & consumption of drugs wouldn't help much either. The legal heroin programs of Europe, Switzerland especially, are promising models... but, this really would only work here in the context of a universal healthcare system.

....sorry to get a bit off topic <end derailment>

That was the point. Outlawing all drugs is a truly Sisyphean job! Unfortunately, the lawmakers may look at it as an endless opportunity to look "tough on drugs" for the next election and write new legislation.

 

[sekio]

This may be better off for DC as it is not really ADD material

 

[Seyer]

Not enough.

 

[skibler]

Not enough.

True that

 

[max_]

hmm.. there are only so many neurotransmiters, so what you'd get is just weird variations on the usual stuff. Like series, you have mophine, diacetilmorphine and so on.. (or 2-ci,e,c,h, etc). Also a lot of these compounds would be impossible to use safely or even toxic in nature (as in nitogen compunds being converted by the body into amonia and the sort). I don't mean to get anybody's hopes down, there is probably a lot of stuff to be synthetized yet, but the amount is limited and even more limited are the possible effects those drugs could have, since drugs have to work through your body.

 

[weirdfish]

I do sometimes wonder at the amazing drugs we might discover in the future. I bet drug users in a few hundred years time will have access to some truly nutty substances.