The impact of cellular environment on in vitro drug screening.

Drug discovery is a lengthy process that goes through several preclinical and clinical testing stages. One of the earliest stages in preclinical testing involves testing new drug using isolated cells. This system is an important tool in research and a commonly used technique in drug testing. However, a number of subtle, but important issues appear to affect its results. Therefore, in this review, we attempt to address some of the important issues that could lead to false positive or negative hits.