JANUARY 22, 2001 VOL. 157 NO. 3

The Future of Drugs
By PHILIP ELMER-DEWITT

ALSO The Future of Drugs Now that our DNA has been decoded, the search for better, faster and more effective medications begins in earnest • Inside the Brave New Pharmacy: At a leading genomics firm, the star of the show is a robot • DNA Microarrays: The workhorse of genomic medicine • Bioinformatics: How to design a molecule • The Search for Cures: The fight against aids, cancer, mental illness, obesity, Alzheimer's

ALSO IN TIME COVER: The Future of Drugs Now that our DNA has been decoded, the search for better, faster and more effective medications begins in earnest • Inside the Brave New Pharmacy: At a leading genomics firm, the star of the show is a robot • DNA Microarrays: The workhorse of genomic medicine • Bioinformatics: How to design a molecule • The Search for Cures: The fight against aids, cancer, mental illness, obesity, Alzheimer's NORTH KOREA: Out of the Bag A German doctor's close encounters with the Hermetic Kingdom shed light on the miserable living conditions in one of the world's last Stalinist states. Plus, excerpts from his diary THAILAND: The New No. 1 The numbers are lining up for Prime Minister-elect Thaksin JAPAN: Murder on the Wards Fears that a killer nurse has been on the loose lead to calls for a more open medical system THE PHILIPPINES: A Load of Rubbish The streets of Manila are overflowing with uncollected trash HONG KONG: Surprise Farewell A top civil servant's resignation puzzles the territory MEDIA: A Guy on the Move Hong Kong mogul Jimmy Lai starts anew in Taipei RELIGION: Muslim Rebellion Japanese food-additive maker Ajinomoto comes under fire in Indonesia for an odd way of making MSG TRAVEL WATCH: Bear Necessities in Ancient, Spicy Chengdu

In an age in which so much of medical science is utterly incomprehensible—even to other scientists—it's comforting to remind ourselves from time to time that a lot of what passes for modern medicine is simply the refinement and repackaging of ancient remedies. Digitalis from foxglove. Opiates from poppies. Aspirin from the bark of willow trees. Even now, nearly 60% of the best-selling prescription drugs in America's pharmacies are based on compounds taken directly from Mother Nature's well-stocked armamentarium—and the rest of the world is catching on. It's as if there were a bright, healing thread running from the medicine bags of shamans and witch doctors to today's drugs for cancer, Alzheimer's and heart disease.

But that's about to change. With the mapping of the genome—the twisted double strand of DNA that carries the instructions for making every cell in the human body—the process by which new drugs are developed is being turned upside down. Trial and error, which is how medicines have been discovered for the past 100 years (and for millenniums before that), is yielding to drugs by design. Increasingly scientists, armed with blueprints for our genes, can identify the individual molecules that make us susceptible to a particular disease. With that information—and some high-speed silicon-age machinery—they can build new molecules that home in on their targets like well-aimed arrows. Such well-directed weapons will have fewer side effects than traditional medicines.

How will all this change our life? The pains we suffer? The time we spend in doctors' offices? The diseases that finally do us in? Will we conquer aids and cancer? Will we unravel the mysteries of mental illness? The possible answers are as surprising as the science that is producing them. In the pages that follow we will try to give you a glimpse of the future by looking over the shoulders of the scientists who are searching for tomorrow's miracle drugs.

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