Natural Products for Cancer: Cutting-Edge Trends and Future Directions

Dear Colleagues,

Natural products are still the most promising prolific sources of novel anticancer agents, providing distinct mechanisms of action and unique chemical scaffolds characterized by high biological selectivity and precise modulation of cancer-related molecular targets, thereby offering potential strategies to overcome multidrug resistance. Despite advances in synthetic libraries, in silico discovery and computational design, the structural richness of natural products from plants, marine organisms and microbes continues to drive major therapeutic breakthroughs and deliver transformative anticancer leads. Advances in multi-omics and single-cell technologies are transforming natural product discovery, enabling the acceleration and the identification of bioactive compounds with unprecedented precision and efficiency. Meanwhile, deeper understanding of tumor microenvironment heterogeneity, immune evasion pathways and metabolic reprogramming is reshaping strategies for incorporating natural products into contemporary cancer therapy.

This Special Issue seeks to showcase cutting-edge research, current trends, and emerging directions in natural product-driven cancer discovery. We welcome original research articles, communications, critical reviews, clinical trial results and case studies that investigate innovative extraction, analytical and screening technologies. These include high-throughput screening, rational structure- and ligand-based design, and fragment-based drug discovery; elucidate the mechanisms by which  natural products modulate cancer signaling, cell death and immune responses; and develop translational approaches bridging preclinical research with clinical application. Research on synergistic drug combinations, structure–activity optimization, biosynthetic pathway engineering and AI-guided discovery pipelines for anticancer natural products is strongly encouraged.

By gathering interdisciplinary insights, this Special Issue endeavors to guide the development of next-generation of natural product-based anticancer therapeutics, foster high-impact discoveries, drive transformative research and define a strategic roadmap for harnessing nature’s chemical diversity in cancer therapy.

Prof. Dr. Mounir Tilaoui
Prof. Dr. Abdelmajid Zyad
Guest Editors

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