During the last decade, drug discovery process has been dramatically changed by new technologies such as combinatorial chemistry and high throughput screening. A tremendous number of compounds can be synthesized and screened routinely. However, most of drug candidates found by these technologies possess inappropriate pharmacokinetic properties and therefore fail during pre-clinical and clinical studies. To solve this problem, ADME screening has to be performed in the earlier stage of drug discovery. While Caco-2 cells and recombinant P 450 enzymes are being used as in vitro models for high throughput ADME screening, computational screening of virtual combinatorial libraries is increasingly an attractive approach in terms of speed and cost. In this article, we review the methods of analyzing structure/property relationship and the models of pharmacokinetic properties such as solubility, permeability, and metabolism.

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We introduced (and also gave outlines of) some database systems and property prediction methods which might be very useful to polymer material designers. At first, brief explanations were made for the relation between characteristics of polymer materials and their properties. Then, some useful database (of literature, catalog, and polymer property) were introduced. We also added brief explanation about the object modeling technique (OMT) which is very effective method in the case of database design (data modeling)especially for complicated data like polymer material properties. In fact, OMT had been applied to PoLyInfo developed by Japan Science and Technology Corporation, which is well known as the generalized database for polymer materials. Finally, we introduced the atomic group contribution method as the typically empirical technique for property prediction.

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Recently, the manipulation techniques of micro-carriers have been noted in Lab-On-Chip technology and micro total analysis systems as well as drug delivery system. This paper reviews dynamic manipulation techniques and sensing system of micro-carriers. The techniques include beads-handling by optical tweezers and magnetic tweezers, and electrophoresis and magnetic control of micro-carriers. Especially, the application of magnetic carriers is mainly focused. The most attractive advantage of the magnetic carriers is ease of separation, rapidity and efficiency of the process. The application of bacterial magnetic particles, which are obtained from magnetic bacteria, is introduced as a functional magnetic material, further advantages of magnetic manipulation using bacterial magnetic particles are also discussed.

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Recent advances in biomedical imaging, especiall PET and SPECT imaging, and its application in drug development research are summarized.

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The Human Genome Project is now almost completed, and we are now about to move into the post-genome sequence era of Functional Genomics. The advent of genome science had markedly changed the way how the life science research including medical study is conducted ; thus, systematic and integrated, “genome-wide” survey is feasible, Human Genome Project provides insights so profound that it has the ability to change everything we know about medicine and how medicines are developed. Genetic factors contribute substantially to variable drug effects and constitute a critical element of a product's profile that must be considered in clinical use. Pharmacogenomics is a rapidly emerging field focused on understanding the genetic factors underlying drug action and applying this information to improve the clinical use and development of pharmaceutical products. In clinical practice, the understanding of how genetic variation leads to variable drug effects can be used to prescribe drugs selectively to individuals in regimens and doses that are most likely to be safe and effective (Personalized Medicine). Also, pharmacogenomics will promote to develop novel pharmaceutical products targeted to the normal genetic variance of human populations. In drug development, knowledge of genetic variation that may affect drug action can be used to reduce the cost and complexity of clinical trials, increase the success rate of achieving regulatory approval, and achieve approvals for new classes of diagnostic and therapeutic products. Pharmacogenomics programs, thus, enhances the development, commercialization, and clinical use of conventional pharmaceutical products for common diseases, and eventually a powerful tool for Evidence-Based Medicine.

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