A Commemorative Special Issue in Honor of Professor Eliezer J. Barreiro: Early Drug Discovery: From Target Identification and Validation to Lead Optimization

Dear Colleagues,

Dedicated to the renowned Professor Eliezer J. Barreiro, this Special Issue honors a visionary and a giant in the field of medicinal chemistry.

Dr. Barreiro, Emeritus Professor of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), was the first Brazilian to obtain a PhD in medicinal chemistry, after completing a full PhD at the University of Grenoble under the guidance of Pierre Crabbé em 1978. His leadership and pioneering spirit in medicinal chemistry in Brazil and Latin America are undeniable. He was the Founder of the Laboratory for the Evaluation and Synthesis of Bioactive Substances (LASSBio) at UFRJ and the Founder of the Summer School in Pharmaceutical and medicinal chemistry (EVQFM), which celebrates its 31st uninterrupted edition in 2025. Since the 25th edition, the Summer School has been renamed EVQFM-Professor Eliezer Barreiro. Together with his main scientific disciple, Professor Carlos Alberto Manssour Fraga, he wrote the first book on medicinal chemistry written by Brazilians and published in Portuguese in Brazil.

His scientific contribution can be gauged by carefully reading the over 350 publications in scientific journals authored by Professor Eliezer Barreiro. Throughout his career, he has worked on different projects aimed at the design and synthesis of bioactive compounds for chronic non-communicable diseases, focusing on the identification of hits, lead optimization and the selection of pre-clinical candidates. He has supervised hundreds of Masters and PhD students, many of whom have sparked medicinal chemistry research in Brazil. Professor Barreiro was a full member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences. His death on April 8, 2024 was felt by the entire Brazilian scientific community, but his story and legacy will continue to inspire new generations of medicinal chemists.

This Special Issue, entitled “A Commemorative Special Issue in Honor of Professor Eliezer J. Barreiro: Early Drug Discovery: From Target Identification and Validation to Lead Optimization”, will be published by the journal Pharmaceuticals.

Drug discovery is a complex, multidisciplinary process that begins with identifying and validating the therapeutic target. At this stage, various strategies based on the structure of the target or ligands can be used to identify compounds. These initial stages are fundamental for establishing solid foundations for developing new drugs, reducing risks and increasing the chances of success in the later clinical phases.

This Special Issue highlights recent advances in medicinal chemistry that are driving the discovery and development of drugs in their initial stages. We invite original and review articles in the following areas:

• State-of-the-art in different strategies for rational drug design, focusing on the structure of the target protein or ligand, with the addition of contributions and potential on the use of artificial intelligence.
• Challenges and perspectives for the validation of molecular targets.
• Phenotype-driven drug discovery.
• Modern methods of organic synthesis are used to obtain bioactive compounds and drugs.
• Historical aspects of natural products in drug discovery.
• Molecular modification strategies applied to analog-based drug discovery.
• Advances and applications of structural biology and omics in early drug discovery.

Dr. Luzineide Tinoco
Dr. Lídia Lima
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 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

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. Pharmaceuticals is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly 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 2900 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.

• target validation
• LBDD
• FBDD
• SBDD
• QSAR
• artificial intelligence
• organic synthesis
• natural product
• drug discovery
• medicinal chemistry