Design, Synthesis, Analysis and Application of Antiviral Agents
A special issue of Applied Sciences (ISSN 2076-3417). This special issue belongs to the section "Chemical and Molecular Sciences".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 20 April 2026
Special Issue Editors
Interests: virology; antiviral; vaccines
Interests: computational antiviral design
Interests: GPCR; adrenergic; molecular modelling; drug design; boron-containing compounds
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
It has been over sixty years since the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the first antiviral, idoxuridine, an iodinated analogue of the nucleosides deoxyuridine and thymidine. Since then, antiviral development has expanded considerably, with modern candidates required to demonstrate specific activity against viral targets by inhibiting essential steps in the replication cycle, such as viral entry, genome replication, protein synthesis or processing, assembly, and egress. Beyond pharmacological properties such as bioavailability, tissue penetration, and low or no toxicity, these features differentiate antivirals from molecules with virucidal or immunomodulatory activity.
The continuous emergence of new viruses, the reappearance of previously controlled pathogens, and the wide clinical spectrum of viral diseases—from mild infections like the common cold to high-mortality outbreaks such as Ebola, chronic diseases like HIV/AIDS, and global pandemics such as influenza and SARS-CoV-2—underscore the urgent need for novel antiviral strategies. Effective drug design, synthesis, and evaluation of molecules with potential antiviral activity is important. Effective drug design must account for viral proteins, host factors, pathogen—host interactions, immune responses, mechanisms of immune evasion, and disease pathogenesis.
In this Special Issue, we address the development of antivirals from the design to the application, explaining their potential mechanisms of action.
Dr. Jazmín García-Machorro
Dr. Marlet Martinez-Archundia
Dr. Marvin Antonio Soriano-Ursúa
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Applied Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- antivirals
- in silico
- in vitro
- in vivo
- target
- replication cycle
- viral protein
- viral entry
- viral assembly and exit
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