Daniel C. Carter, ES76 MSFC, NASA, Huntsville, AL 35812 USA

Albumin has a well known ability to alter the in vivo metabolism and distribution of a wide spectrum of pharmaceutical therapeutics. Often newly developed therapeutics are rendered less effective or ineffective by virtue of their high affinity for this abundant plasma protein. Insight into the chemistry of all major drug/ligand sites on albumin has been gained by means of crystallographic structure studies. Approaches to improving the bioavailability of potential therapeutics by structure-based design are presented.