Developing new drugs can give you a headache. Scientists often
resort to throwing just about any biologically active substance
they can at whatever malady they're treating. Even with the most
sophisticated computer analysis to help narrow down the
candidates, it still takes many years to zero in on an effective
treatment. David Noever, a NASA biophysicist who helped design
biology experiments for space shuttle flights, knew that the
size and number of databases that contain information on
biomolecules have mushroomed in recent years. In light of this,
he wondered if there wasn't some way that computers could help
shorten the drug discovery process. In 1992 he stumbled across a
seminar on genetic algorithms, a type of computer program that
solves problems by taking a mediocre solution and evolving it
through natural selection, breeding successively more fit
generations of candidate solutions. Before he knew it, Noever
was in the business of discovering drugs via software. Noever's
software, which he completed