Recent Advances in the Identification of Biologically Active Natural and Synthetic Small Molecules
A special issue of International Journal of Molecular Sciences (ISSN 1422-0067). This special issue belongs to the section "Molecular Informatics".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 April 2022) | Viewed by 6476
Special Issue Editors
Interests: drug design; molecular modeling; bioactive compounds
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: organic chemistry; green chemistry; medicinal chemistry; microwave assisted organic synthesis; small molecules enzyme inhibitors; peptides; peptidomimetics
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Drug discovery is a time- and money-consuming process that requires the conception of smart shortcuts, to be improved. Many efforts have been done in the past and are ongoing for drug target identification and to accelerate and improve biological assays. At the same time, the usual medicinal chemistry approaches are continuously enhanced in the attempt to find more active and selective small molecules with a few or no side and unwanted effects. Molecular hybridization to find bidentate and multi-target ligands recently resulted in the PROTAC technique. Antibody-drug conjugates significantly improved drug delivery and allowed to recycle molecules that act as a cell poison. Repurposing and repositioning of known drugs into different therapeutic areas gained increasing success and laid the foundations to alternative use of pre-existing therapeutic agents. In the recent literature many other examples appeared that described advances in the identification of biologically active small molecules, either from natural sources or synthesis.
This Special Issue of the International Journal of Molecular Sciences is intended to collect original works or literature surveys dedicated to finding new putative drugs or diagnostic agents by application of innovative or improved drug design and identification approaches and techniques.
Prof. Dr. Fabrizio Manetti
Dr. Samuele Maramai
Guest Editor
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Keywords
- Drug Discovery
- Molecular Modelling
- Biologically active compounds
- Natural compounds
- Structure-activity relationships
- Molecular hybridization
- Multi-target ligands
- Biological evaluation
- Drug repurposing and repositioning
- Synthesis of small molecules
- Hit identification
- Hit-to-lead optimization
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