Improved rational drug design methods are needed to lower the cost and increase the success rate of drug discovery and development. Alchemical binding free energy calculations, one potential tool for rational design, have progressed rapidly over the last decade, but still fall short of providing robust tools for pharmaceutical engineering. Recent studies, especially on model receptor systems, have clarified many of the challenges that must be overcome for robust predictions of binding affnity to be useful in rational design. In this review, inspired by a recent joint academic/industry meeting organized by the authors, we discuss these challenges and suggest a number of promising approaches for overcoming them.

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The binding of 14 biotin analogues to avidin is examined to evaluate the viability of calculating binding free energy based on molecular dynamics (MD) trajectories. Two approaches were investigated in this work. The first one uses the linear interaction energy approximation, while the other approach utilizes the interaction free energy. The results obtained from these two methods were found to correlate well with the experimental binding free energy data for 10 out of 14 ligands. For the other four ligands, both methods overestimate their binding strength by more than 7 kcal/mol. Free energy calculations using the thermodynamic integration method are employed to understand this overestimation. The effect of protein flexibility on binding free energy calculation and the effect of charged or neutral ligands on the calculated results are discussed. MD simulations are shown to be able to provide insight into the interactions occurring in the active site and the origins of variations in binding free energy.

Measurements of the photoelastic tensor components and figures of merit of several materials selected for possible application in acoustic light modulators and scanners are presented. The most important results are that GaP is superior to fused quartz by nearly two orders of magnitude for modulation and scanning of visible light of wavelength longer than 0.58 μ, and that GaAs is similarly superior at wave-lengths longer than about 1 μ.