A German-French-Chinese consortium has successful applied technology for the identification of ligands of a specific orphan target. A class of potent and bioavailable RAR-related orphan receptor agonists was identified in a plant extract library. The findings demonstrate a general small molecule approach on orphan targets.

Stéphane Helleboid et al., J. Biomol. Screen. July 29, 2013, doi: 10.1177/1087057113497095