Patent 7716030 was granted and assigned to Vertex Pharmaceuticals on May, 2010 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
Methods of identifying potential ligands for macromolecular targets are disclosed herein. The methods comprise providing models of three dimensional structural information for ligands or a ligand:macromolecule complex, mapping spatial relationships between the models, and identifying one or more pairs of matching bonds. Databases and apparatuses are also provided.