Chalcogens in Medicinal Chemistry

Dear Colleagues,

Selenium is an essential trace element, and its deficiency has been linked to several health issues, including the development of several human cancers, loss of immunocompetence, depression and other negative mood states, decreased male and female fertility, the occurrence of certain viral infections, and the exacerbation of hypothyroidism, asthma, and rheumatoid arthritis. Low-dose selenium supplementation has been shown to be beneficial in protecting against many of these maladies. For example, many epidemiological studies provide an inverse relationship between selenium intake and cancer mortality. Additionally, the promise of selenium compounds as cancer chemopreventive and therapeutic agents has been well demonstrated in several preclinical in vitro and animal studies. Likewise, the therapeutic potential of selenium compounds has been reported for several other diseases. Therefore, rationally designed selenium based compounds clearly hold promise to develop future therapies for various diseases. These observations have generated great interest in the development of novel inorganic and organo-selenium compounds, the discovery of innovative synthetic strategies for their preparation, and the characterization of their biological activities. Medicinal chemistry involving the synthesis of new molecules and structure–activity relationship (SAR) studies to access their biological implications are the first and most important steps in this process. Thus, the design and development of new selenium compounds is an emerging field that could lead to the discovery of new drug-like molecules worthy of clinical development in the near future. This Special Issue of Molecules entitled “Selenium in Medicinal Chemistry” is mainly focused on the following research aspects of selenium compounds: (i) chemical synthesis and characterization, (ii) naturally occurring selenium compounds, (iii) in silico studies, (iv) structure–activity relationship studies, (v) rational drug design, (vi) in vitro and in vivo biological screening, (vii) chemical biology and biological chemistry, and (viii) other topics related to selenium.

Prof. Dr. Arun Sharma
Guest Editor

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