Waste and By-Products from Agricultural Production for Innovative Health Applications

Dear Colleagues,

We are pleased to invite you to submit original articles to this Special Issue entitled “Waste and By-Products from Agricultural Production for Innovative Health Applications”.

This Special Issue (SI) aims to highlight all aspects related to preparation, extraction, phytochemical, and pharmacotoxicological investigations of plant material derived from high quality waste byproducts of medicinal and food plants. The aim of the present SI is focused on the new worldwide research interest in the valorization of productive chains that are improvable in terms of circular economy and sustainability. The SI will consider studies that are related to this aspect from multiple points of view, namely, extract optimization, with particular regard to biocompatible solvents and processes, comparative studies of extraction techniques, and their pharmacotoxicological impact on biological systems and human and animal health.

Manuscripts describing at least one of the following items are welcome:

• Description of crude extracts, although fingerprint analysis of secondary metabolites is an essential requirement;
• Pharmacotoxicological investigations performed at multiple levels (in vitro, ex vivo, and in vivo studies): animal and clinical trials are welcome, although authorization for experimental procedures and/or the blank informed consent should be provided during submission;
• Studies about isolated compounds from plant material in comparison to the crude extract.

As a final remark, investigative and applicative potentials should not be limited to the sole chemical characterization of plant-derived extracts, and manuscripts suggesting new applicative fields of previously characterized extracts are encouraged.

Prof. Dr. Luigi Menghini
Prof. Dr. Claudio Ferrante
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.