Introduction

The rDock platform is a suite of command-line tools for high-throughput docking and virtual screening. The programs and methods were developed and validated from 1998 to 2002 at RiboTargets (more recently, Vernalis) for proprietary use. The original program (RiboDock) was designed for high-throughput virtual screening of large ligand libraries against RNA targets, in particular the bacterial ribosome. Since 2002 the programs have been substantially rewritten and validated for docking of drug-like ligands to protein and RNA targets. A variety of experimental restraints can be incorporated into the docking calculation, in support of an integrated structure-based drug design process. In 2006, the software was licensed to the University of York for maintenance and distribution under the name rDock and, in 2012, Vernalis and the University of York agreed to release the program as open-source software.

rDock is licensed under GNU LGPL version 3.0 with support from the University of Barcelona – rdock.sourceforge.net.

Last change to rDock was made in 2014. RxDock is an actively developed fork of rDock started by RxTx in 2019.