Understanding ligand-receptor non-covalent binding kinetics using molecular modeling

Kinetic properties may serve as critical differentiators and predictors of drug efficacy and safety, in addition to the traditionally focused binding affinity. However the quantitative structure-kinetics relationship (QSKR) for modeling and ligand design is still poorly understood. This review provides an introduction to the kinetics of drug binding from a fundamental chemistry perspective. We focus on recent developments of computational tools and their applications to non-covalent binding kinetics.