Welcome to DOCK Blaster, a public access virtual screening service for target-based ligand discovery! DOCK Blaster is in beta test. If you are:

• working on a protein target for which a structure is available
• able to test docking predictions experimentally
• seeking new ligands for your target and
• willing to help us test the software

please email us at betatest at docking.org with a brief explanation of your research to apply.
 
What is this all about? Virtual screening has emerged as the most practical approach to use protein structure to discover small molecules that bind to them. Virtual Screening "docks" commercially-available small molecules into the binding site, and ranks them according to a physics-based scoring scheme. The investigator reviews the top scoring compounds, prioritizing them for purchase or synthesis. Compounds are acquired and tested experimentally, controlling for non-specific binding. Typically, at least a few of the compounds will bind, although results vary considerably. DOCK Blaster is the first free virtual screening service that offers automatic assessment, allowing you to evaluate the significance of the results.
 
Who would be interested? DOCK Blaster is designed for biologists and medicinal chemists who are not computer or docking specialists. Experts are welcome, but it is really designed for non-experts.
 
How does it work? (short version) DOCK Blaster uses DOCK 3.5.54, a version of UCSF DOCK and ZINC, a public access database for virtual screening. We thank NIGMS for financial support (GM71896).