Bind Research
Published March 18, 2026 | Version v1
Working paper Open

Making disordered proteins druggable

Authors/Creators

  • 1. Bind Research

Description

Intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs) represent one of the largest remaining frontiers in molecular medicine. More than 30% of residues in the human proteome are intrinsically disordered, and many IDPs play central roles in diseases including cancer and neurodegeneration. Despite their importance, there are currently no clinically approved small-molecule drugs that specifically target intrinsically disordered proteins.

This whitepaper outlines the scientific and institutional challenges that have historically limited progress in targeting IDPs. Unlike structured proteins, IDPs do not adopt a single stable three-dimensional conformation and often lack the well-defined binding pockets typically exploited in conventional drug discovery. As a result, progress has been constrained by non-classical binding thermodynamics, experimental and computational bottlenecks, and the absence of large-scale, standardised datasets suitable for modern modelling approaches.

Bind Research was established to address these barriers by building the experimental and computational infrastructure required for scalable IDP drug discovery. The organisation integrates experimental biophysics, medicinal chemistry, chemoproteomics, molecular dynamics simulation, and machine learning to generate large-scale datasets and develop workflows that can be applied across diverse intrinsically disordered proteins.

This document describes the scientific rationale for targeting IDPs, the technical challenges involved, and the platform being developed at Bind Research to transform intrinsically disordered protein drug discovery from isolated proof-of-concept studies into a reproducible and generalisable approach.

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Cites
Other: 10.5281/zenodo.17245929 (DOI)