that stimulate insulin receptors,

能够激活胰岛素受体的药物
for example, but they're not exactly insulin,

但它们都不是和胰岛素分毫不差的
and those can potentially be used as agonist type drugs.

但都可以用作激动剂类药物
An alternate is to design an antagonist.

另一种思路是设计拮抗剂
This would an example of a substance that inhibits the action

这类物质能够以多种方式
of a natural ligand and they can inhibit in a variety of ways.

抑制天然配体的作用
Sometimes they inhibit by just

有时它们只是
preventing the ligand from interacting with its receptor.

干扰配体和受体的相互作用
They prevent the ligand from reaching its natural receptor,

它们能够阻止配体与受体的结合
and so that antagonizes or inhibits the function of the natural ligand.

这样就拮抗或者说是抑制了配体的功能
Sometimes they act by actually binding to the receptor.

有时拮抗剂与受体相结合
They bind sometimes better than the natural ligand does,

结合的比天然配体和受体的的结合更紧密