Prodrugs: Design and Development
A special issue of Pharmaceuticals (ISSN 1424-8247). This special issue belongs to the section "Medicinal Chemistry".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (25 March 2025) | Viewed by 2482
Special Issue Editors
Interests: drug development; cancer research; cell biology; organelle targeting; metalorganics
2. School of Medicine, Union of the Colleges of the Great Lakes (UNILAGO), SJRP, São Paulo, Brazil
Interests: new drugs; drug design; drug discovery; infectious disease; medicinal chemistry
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Chemically modified drug molecules with a neglectable pharmacological activity that are transformed into the active parent drug in vivo by enzymatic reactions or under special cellular conditions are called prodrugs. The concept of the prodrug is designed to tackle several drug formulation and pharmacokinetic problems including poor solubility, low absorption, too-high or too-low lipophilicity, and poor target discrimination. As a result, every year the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approves several prodrugs which account for a significant fraction (>10%) of all FDA-approved small molecules. Some recent examples are Eybelis (topical ocular hypotensive treatment, approved in 2022) and Azstarys (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder treatment, approved in 2021).
This Special Issue is dedicated to the design and development of prodrugs, the in vivo and in vitro studies as well as to the development of advanced drug-delivery systems with prodrug mechanism of action, such as prodrug-based nanoparticles. Authors are welcome to submit research papers or review articles on the topics connected with prodrug carriers, the development of not-selective prodrugs to improve drug pharmacokinetic properties, or the development of selective prodrugs activated by light, disease-specific enzymes, hypoxic/oxidative microenvironment of cancer and/or pH, etc.
Dr. Viktor Reshetnikov
Prof. Dr. Chung Man Chin
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.
Keywords
- prodrug
- molecular modification
- disease-specific activation
- targeting
- solubility and lipophilicity adjustment
Benefits of Publishing in a Special Issue
- Ease of navigation: Grouping papers by topic helps scholars navigate broad scope journals more efficiently.
- Greater discoverability: Special Issues support the reach and impact of scientific research. Articles in Special Issues are more discoverable and cited more frequently.
- Expansion of research network: Special Issues facilitate connections among authors, fostering scientific collaborations.
- External promotion: Articles in Special Issues are often promoted through the journal's social media, increasing their visibility.
- e-Book format: Special Issues with more than 10 articles can be published as dedicated e-books, ensuring wide and rapid dissemination.
Further information on MDPI's Special Issue policies can be found here.
