Essentially, the aim of molecular docking is to give a prediction of the ligand-receptor
complex structure using computation methods. Docking can be achieved through two
interrelated steps: first by sampling conformations of the ligand in the active site of the
protein; then ranking these conformations via a scoring function. Ideally, sampling
algorithms should be able to reproduce the experimental binding mode and the scoring
function should also rank it highest among all generated conformations. From these two
perspectives, we give a brief overview of basic docking theory.