The industrialization of structural proteomics will increase the number of valuable drug targets available. In the nearer term, we anticipate that this new structure data will support the development of downstream activities, particularly those directed at lead refinement or increasing the efficiency of screening.

The recent determination that the human genome comprises only approximately 35,000 genes--not 60,000 to 100,000 as previously thought--has directed even more attention to the role of proteins and, therefore, to the field of structural proteomics.

One goal of this field is to reveal the structures of the key "functional" sites of the giving human protein, which should make it much easier to develop highly specific drugs, thus leading to more effective, and safer, pharmaceuticals.

Technological advances in protein structure determination, coupled with the surge of genomic data, will lead to an exponential increase in the number of known protein structures over the next few years.