Chirality: The Important Factor for Drug Discovery and Development

Dear Colleagues,

Chirality is a neglectable factor affecting the biological behavior of different stereoisomers and has attracted great attention during the process of novel drug discovery and development. In 2022, more than 70% of the new chemical entities approved by the FDA are chiral. In addition to point chirality, axial chirality, such as atropisomerism, is also common in drugs.

Over the last two decades, great achievements have been made in the field of asymmetric synthesis of chiral drugs and their intermediates catalyzed by either metal complexes or enzymes. The emergence of new materials including metal organic frames provides more choices of stationary phases for chiral resolution and chiral analysis. Meanwhile, with the development of quantum-chemical theory and computing power, the characterization of stereochemical structures has been greatly facilitated with the aid of NMR and chiroptical spectroscopic techniques.

In the Special Issue titled "Chirality: The Important Factor for Drug Discovery and Development", both reviews and original articles are invited. Topics include all aspects of chiral drug research, i.e., asymmetric synthesis, chiral resolution, chiral analysis, chiroptical spectroscopy, and biological assessment of stereoisomers. The collection of manuscripts will be published as a Special Issue of the journal.

Prof. Dr. Li Li
Dr. Li Xuqin
Dr. Ma Tao
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.

• chiral drugs
• chiral natural products
• chiral resolution
• asymmetric synthesis
• chiral spectroscopy
• chiral impurities
• atropisomerism
• chiral analysis