Were drug design a road, it would surely be a Minnesota street fraught with potholes, ice and gravel. Even the best ideas can fall by the wayside somewhere between the lab and your corner pharmacy in the process of drug discovery and development. Recently, University of Minnesota Center for Drug Design member, organic chemist and assistant professor Liqiang Chen, Ph.D., published a paper in the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry outlining the discovery of a potent and selective protein-inhibitor. Blocking the protein, Sirtuin 2 (SIRT2), also has the potential to block a primary contributor to Parkinson’s disease from causing harm.