Genomics is certainly one of the newest ways to start looking for drugs. But some researchers say the new field could actually be stopping up the route to drugs. Wired News delivered to your inbox or hand-held device. Discuss this story on Plastic. Researchers simply have tons of new information to work with and therefore need to invest in new technologies to process it.
Time is money, and investing takes time.
That doesn't mean, however, that genomics is a bad way to look for drugs. There's certainly no shortage of companies waiting to supply genomic researchers with the tools they need. Companies such as Celera and Incyte sell databases full of genetic sequences that researchers can sift through. Others such as Affymetrix , Motorola and Agilent sell chips that read DNA and show which genes are active in a particular sample. Some researchers say that if research is being stopped up, it's because scientists are improperly using the tools made available to them.