Drug Mechanism of Action Investigation

Drug Mechanism of Action Investigation

Investigation Philosophy

Drug mechanism research follows one core question chain:

Target -> Downstream Effect -> Pathway -> Organ Effect -> Clinical Outcome

Start with the drug's primary target. What receptor, enzyme, or transporter does it bind? Then trace forward: what does inhibiting/activating that target do immediately? What pathway is disrupted? What organ-level change results? What does the patient experience?

The LLM already knows drug pharmacology. This skill teaches HOW TO INVESTIGATE using available tools, not what mechanisms exist.

When to Use

• "What is the mechanism of action of [drug]?"
• "What are the molecular targets of [drug]?"
• "Which pathways are affected by [drug]?"
• "What pharmacogenomic interactions exist for [drug]?"
• "What are the off-targets of [drug]?"
• "Compare mechanisms of [drug A] vs [drug B]"

NOT for (use other skills)

• Drug safety/adverse events profiling -> tooluniverse-adverse-event-detection
• Drug repurposing/new indications -> tooluniverse-drug-repurposing
• Target druggability assessment -> tooluniverse-drug-target-validation
• Network pharmacology/polypharmacology -> tooluniverse-network-pharmacology
• CPIC dosing guidelines specifically -> tooluniverse-pharmacogenomics

Step 1: Resolve the Drug

Before investigating mechanism, resolve the drug name to a canonical identifier. You need a ChEMBL ID for most downstream queries.

# Resolve drug name to ChEMBL ID
result = tu.tools.OpenTargets_get_drug_id_description_by_name(drugName="metformin")
# Alternative: OpenTargets_get_drug_chembId_by_generic_name(drugName="metformin")