Protein ligands

In biochemistry, a protein ligand is an atom, a molecule or an ion which can bind to a specific site (the binding site) on a protein. Interactions between any protein and its ligands are fundamental and essential for the protein to function properly.

Main methods to study protein-ligand interactions are principal hydrodynamic and calorimetric techniques, and principal spectroscopic and structural methods such as
 * Fourier transform spectroscopy
 * Raman spectroscopy
 * fluorescence spectroscopy
 * Circular dichroism
 * Nuclear magnetic resonance
 * Mass spectrometry
 * Atomic force microscope
 * paramagnetic probes

The dramatically increased computing power of supercomputers and personal computers has made it possible to study protein-ligand interactions also by means of computational chemistry. For example, a worldwide grid of well over a million ordinary PCs has been harnessed for cancer research (see http://www.grid.org)