Most drugs are small molecules that bind firmly to a specific target—some molecule in human cells that is involved in a disease—in order to work. For example, a cancer drug’s target might be a molecule that is abundant inside of cancer cells. The drug should hypothetically travel freely throughout the cell until it comes to its target and then lock onto it, leading to a therapeutic action.
However, small molecule drugs do not travel in such an unrestricted manner; instead, they tend to concentrate in specific regions of the cell. This is because each drug is capable of interacting with many more molecules than its target.
These other interactions tend to be weaker, like static cling versus the pull of a powerful magnet, but they can accumulate when molecules are concentrated together in cellular compartments called condensates. In these compartments, collective weak interactions may detain a significant percentage of drug molecules, keeping them localized either in the same neighborhood as their target or far away from it.
Researchers in Whitehead Institute Member Richard Young’s lab are working to understand the chemical environments inside of different condensates and how these chemistries interact with