Before revision:  After the most recent and successful applications of machine learning for bioactive ligand discovery are reviewed, this article concludes with an outlook on deep learning methods that are capable of  extracting salient information from structural data as a promising future direction for  bioactive ligand discovery.
After revision:  This review describes the most recent and successful applications of machine learning for bioactive ligand discovery are reviewed, this article concludes with an outlook on deep learning methods that are capable of extracting salient information from structural data as a promising future direction for bioactive ligand discovery.