Ok google, how could i design therapeutics against prion diseases?

A number of previous successful attempts in the search for therapeutics for a variety of human pathologies highlight the importance of computational technologies in the drug discovery pipeline. This approach, often referred to as computer-aided drug design, is unfortunately inapplicable when the precise information regarding the three-dimensional structure of disease-associated proteins or the mechanism by which they are altered to generate misfolded isoforms are missing. A typical example is represented by prion diseases, fatal pathologies of the nervous system characterized by the conformational conversion of a physiological protein called PrP C into a misfolded and infectious isoform referred to as PrP Sc . Missing information regarding the atomic structure of PrP Sc as well as the mechanism of templated conversion of PrP C has severely halted the discovery of effective therapies for prion diseases. In this manuscript, we review emerging opportunities to apply computer-aided techniques to target PrP C , PrP Sc or to design inhibitors of prion replication, and discuss how these fast-evolving technologies could lay the groundwork for the application of entirely novel rational drug design schemes for these devastating pathologies.