A post in Derek Lowe’s blog pointed to an interesting technique for probing the mechanism by which a drug acts.
These guys came up with a molecule that was effective against several diseases and then used selection pressures to breed a strain that was resistant in the laboratory. When they sequenced the genomes of the original and the resistant version, they looked for differences that would point to the drug’s target. Seems like a cool and effective way to let nature guide the investigation. As long as the resistant organism never leaves the lab you’ve got an effective drug and a good idea about why the drug works.