Pharmacophores for Amyloid Fibers Involved in Alzheimer's Disease

This invention relates, e.g., to a method for designing or selecting on a computer a candidate small molecule amyloid binder or inhibitor, comprising: a) docking test compounds to the binding site or binding surface determined from the three-dimensional structure of a co-crystal of a protofilament of an amyloid protein bound to a small molecule which is known to bind to the amyloid protein, and (b) selecting test compounds which exhibit an energy below that of the small molecule used to form the co-crystal made in a), as candidate amyloid binders.