Rational Design, Synthesis, and Evaluation of Small-Molecule Anticancer Agents
A special issue of Molecules (ISSN 1420-3049). This special issue belongs to the section "Medicinal Chemistry".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 June 2026 | Viewed by 24
Special Issue Editors
Interests: natural product chemistry; bio-inorganic chemistry; cancer drug discovery; targeted drug delivery; synthesis of bio-active metal complexes; medicinal plants; phytochemicals
Interests: drug design; drug discovery; medicinal chemistry; organic synthesis; lead optimization; anticancer; molecular modeling; in vitro assays
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Cancer is one of the most challenging and rapidly growing diseases worldwide. Various forms of cancer caused nearly 10 million deaths in 2020, with many new cases still increasing. Although many anticancer drugs are available on the market, their effectiveness is limited due to severe side effects and low specificity for cancer cells. Many biologically feasible drugs have been discovered and used as chemotherapy agents to treat cancer. Unfortunately, new challenges are emerging, such as the development of drug resistance in the causative biological agents, mild to severe side effects, and higher failure rates of new drugs in development. To address these gaps, there is an urgent need for next-generation chemotherapeutics and chemical probes that validate targets and translate into durable clinical benefit.
This Special Issue of Molecules invites original research communications on the design and synthesis of small molecules with anticancer activity, alongside comprehensive biological evaluation. We invite prominent and emerging academic researchers from around the world to submit papers to this Special Issue.
We welcome papers that focus on target-based design strategies, organic synthesis, medicinal chemistry, total synthesis, natural product chemistry, in vitro assays, enzymatic assays that confirm target engagement, in vivo experiments, SAR, and computational chemistry that aim to improve the understanding of drug design and action.
Dr. Srinivasa Reddy Telukutla
Dr. Ganga Reddy Velma
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
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Keywords
- drug design
- medicinal chemistry
- organic synthesis
- total synthesis
- multi-drug resistance
- biological activity
- anti-cancer
- heterocyclic compounds
- cytotoxicity
- structure–activity relationship
- molecular modeling
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