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 1787
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
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
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
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 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.
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. Molecules is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly 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.
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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