Nucleic acid selection as a tool for drug discovery

Nucleic acid selection has proven to be an extremely versatile technique for the isolation of aptamers that can bind tightly and specifically to target molecules. Aptamers can modulate cellular physiology and have begun to be developed for therapeutic applications. Aptamers have also begun to be used as research reagents for the detection and localization of proteins. Moreover, because nucleic acid selection can quickly yield compounds that have unique properties and that can be applied in unique roles, this technique should generally be used as a tool to augment drug discovery efforts.