application of qsar in drug design and drug discovery

Over past twenty years a large number of ligands, both agonists and antagonists have been developed by computational methodologies which are used to increase the efficiency of drug discovery process by rendering the design of new drug candidates. Both 2D and 3D-quantitative structure activity relation (QSAR) studies have been carried out using topological parameters along with thermodynamic and structural descriptors. The scope of this review is to highlight the use of pharmacophoric models and QSAR studies for identification and optimization of new ligands having potential to develop as drug candidates.