Biomimetic Catalytic Systems for Pharmacokinetic and/or Pharmacodynamic Processes

Dear Colleagues,

Macromolecular systems in the living organism (such as proteins, lipids, lipid-protein, nucleic acid) provide unique points of interaction for both endogenous and exogenous compounds, including drug molecules. Due to the complex interactions, the physicochemical, structural and chemical properties of the interacting molecules can also change significantly. These interactions can lead to altered reactivity (or catalytic activity in enzyme catalyzed transformations) and conformation, the stereochemical properties and chemical entity of these guest compounds are also changed. These processes related to biologically active agents are the subject of pharmacokinetics. Of course, these changed physicochemical and chemical patterns could have greater or lesser effect on the physiological processes, which is a demanded pharmacodynamic response of drug compounds.

Regarding, that the above mentioned processes mainly based on complex biotransformations are much more complex than most known simple chemical and catalytic processes, mimicking and modeling these biological systems is an important area in the development of sustainable and green bio-and chemical processes. The so-called biomimetic systems are able to substitute the real biotransformation in they can be effectively applied for homogeneous or heterogeneous systems as well. Among them, catalysts systems, which are able to mimic specific enzyme actions, have growing attention in many research field. Due to the fact that biomimetic catalyst systems are sensitive, difficult to synthetized and particularly expensive in many cases the effective and sustainable application of them has serious limitations. The rational design of chemical structure of the biomimetic catalyst and the fine-tuning of biomimetic reaction media or the development of catalyst immobilization techniques can provide solutions for these problems. Taking into account the potential industrial advantages of biomimetic systems and the research interest, this area enjoys special attention in the field of catalyst carrier or reactor development. As a straightforward approach, novel nanocarriers, composite carriers and nano-or micro reactor systems has also a great interest in the improvement  of biomimetic catalytic systems in the development of nanocarrier, composite systems.

The well-designed biomimetic model systems can be a unique alternative tool to describe and explore physiological biotransformations such as metabolism, specific tissue- or cell-targeted drug delivery or action of APIs on sensor molecules.

In accordance with the above, special issue is expected to present biomimetic/biocatalyst systems for biotransformation processes and therapeutic and diagnostic solutions related to drug-biomacromolecule interactions, typically related to pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics.

Dr. György Tibor Balogh
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

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. Catalysts is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly 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 2700 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.

• Biomimetic catalytic systems
• Enzyme related biomimetic transformation
• Regio- and enantioselective reactions
• Chemical models for ADME processes
• Biomimetic sensor systems
• Homogenous and heterogenous systems
• Batch and continuous flow processes
• Microfluidic and lab-on-a-chip system