Applications of Natural and Pseudo-Natural Products in Drug Discovery and Development 2025
A special issue of Current Issues in Molecular Biology (ISSN 1467-3045). This special issue belongs to the section "Bioorganic Chemistry and Medicinal Chemistry".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 December 2025 | Viewed by 999
Special Issue Editor
Interests: natural product; chemistry; medicinal chemistry; cancer biology; bioorganic chemistry; pharmacology; diabetes; synthetic chemistry; biology oriented synthesis
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Natural products (NPs) and NP-based semi-synthetic compounds have been attracting increased attention from the scientific community due to their great structural and chemical diversity. Notably, NP-based molecules are valid sources of drug lead compounds, because 60% of chemotherapeutic agents originate from natural products. On the other hand, pseudo‐natural products (PNPs) combine natural product (NP) fragments in novel and intriguing arrangements that are not accessible via biosynthesis pathways. Moreover, they can be regarded as non‐biogenic fusions of NP‐derived fragments. Scientists have established new synthesis principles to advance beyond the chemical space explored by nature by combining the principles of biology-orientated synthesis (BIOS) and fragment-based compound design. Interestingly, scaffolds from different NPs can be combined and reconnected to create new alternative molecular scaffolds: so-called pseudo-natural products.
The aim of this Special Issue on natural product (NP)- and pseudo‐natural product (PNP)-based drug discovery is to underline the most recent discoveries and progress in all fields of biological sciences dealing with NPs and PNPs. This Special Issue will mainly focus on biological studies on NPs and PNPs on a molecular level. In addition, this Special Issue will also focus on the development of new NP- and PNP-based therapeutic agents for the treatment of numerous diseases, employing the newest techniques in pharmacology, biotechnology, and genetic engineering. For this Special Issue, we welcome original articles, communications, and reviews exploring drug discovery and development.
Dr. Hidayat Hussain
Guest Editor
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Keywords
- natural products
- pseudo-natural products
- drug discovery
- molecular level
- in vitro studies
- in vivo studies
- computational methods
- mode of action
- computational methods
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