Innovative Technologies for the Sustainable Development of Next-Generation Plant-Based Drugs
A special issue of Molecules (ISSN 1420-3049). This special issue belongs to the section "Medicinal Chemistry".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 September 2023) | Viewed by 264
Special Issue Editor
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Historically, humans have learned to use the plant kingdom as a source of medicine through shamanism. Eventually, advances in synthetic chemistry could synthesize compounds that are more efficient (and often more toxic) than the natural compounds obtained from the plant kingdom. Over the years, the use of synthetic medicine has escalated within the modern pharma market due to its high potential to cure a wide variety of human diseases. This trend also stresses the eco-systems and may adversely impact our long-term health. Recently, consumer-perceived knowledge of the threat of pharmaceuticals to the environment and high levels of health awareness have increased pressure to re-design drugs with natural sources containing therapeutic potential and to facilitate safe and convenient ways of targeting the medication. The use of nuanced novel technologies in medicinal and green chemistry has raised a movement to restore ancient plant-based healing practices with improved therapeutic effects, which are superior to synthetic combinatorial chemicals. These technologies, including green extraction, automation, and omics technologies, can improve drug identification, reduce their eco-toxicity, and enhance sustainable production from plant-based natural sources with improved precision, compliance, and the replicability of results, leading to a better drug candidate. However, the successful use of these technologies completely depends on the selection of raw materials and their complex mechanisms of action at the molecular level. Thus, a non-reductionist strategy using these technologies would allow the development of convenient, safe, and more effective next-generation plant-based drugs to combat global pandemics and the ever-increasing health challenges of today and the future.
In view of the above, this Special Issue will cover the recent advances in green extraction, automation (i.e., microfluidics, molecular design, and integrated automated drug design), and omics technologies used in the development of next-generation plant-based drugs. We will also review the more efficient computer-aided technologies, including big data-driven and informatics approaches by artificial intelligence and machine learning, drug design, molecular docking, molecular simulations, pharmacophore modeling, virtual screening and repositioning technologies, to achieve greater efficiency of the entire drug discovery process, particularly for hard-to-treat-diseases. Overall, this Special Issue is seeking cutting-edge research and review articles, including, but not limited to, the following topics:
- Novel green and sustainable extraction technologies for plant-based drug discovery;
- Automation in plant-based drug design: microfluidics-based single cell screening and synthesis, optimization of reaction conditions, and compound synthesis;
- Omics (proteomics, and metabolomics/metabonomics) in natural product validation and biomarker identification;
- Intelligent process automation, artificial intelligence, and machine learning, molecular simulations and mathematical models, pharmacophore modeling, virtual screening, and repositioning technologies applied in next-generation plant-based drug design.
Dr. Mithun Rudrapal
Guest Editor
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Keywords
- natural products
- drug design
- sustainability
- plant-based next generation drugs
- innovative technologies
- computer-aided technologies, automation in drug design
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