Drug discovery is a complex undertaking facing many challenges, not the
least of which is a high attrition rate as many promising candidates
prove ineffective or toxic in the clinic owing to a poor understanding of
the diseases, and thus the biological systems, they target. Therefore, it
is broadly agreed that to increase the productivity of drug discovery one
needs a far deeper understanding of the molecular mechanisms of diseases,
taking into account the full biological context of the drug target and
moving beyond individual genes and proteins. The present methods rely on
the use of label-free cellular assays, particularly the DMR index, to
systematically display the mode of actions, the toxicity, and the
target(s) and pathway(s) of any molecules.