Crystal Engineering in the Pharmaceutical Sciences
A special issue of Pharmaceuticals (ISSN 1424-8247). This special issue belongs to the section "Medicinal Chemistry".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 25 March 2026 | Viewed by 39
Special Issue Editor
Interests: solid state chemistry; pair distribution function; synchrotron x-ray diffraction; solid nanoparticles; drug quality; polymorphs; salts; cocrystals; amorphous forms
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
As Desiraju noted, “crystal engineering”—a term coined more than sixty years ago—remains central to solid-state chemistry and the development, manufacturing, and control of pharmaceuticals. It focuses on understanding intermolecular interactions and crystal packing, and using this knowledge to design solids with desirable physical and chemical properties; in this way, it is closely linked to pharmaceutical development and formulation design. Crystal engineering is especially important for salts and cocrystals. For salts, a key concern is the risk of disproportionation; for cocrystals, questions include whether they can be prepared reproducibly, whether they are stable, and whether they deliver advantageous properties. In parallel, liposomal products and lipid-based nanocarriers provide complementary strategies for engineering drug microenvironments and performance. Avoiding late-appearing or hidden polymorphs—and using crystal-structure prediction to aid the discovery of all relevant polymorphs—remains a major area of focus. Finally, applications of crystal engineering to manufacturing pharmaceutical solids in space are of particular interest.
Prof. Dr. Stephen Robert Byrn
Guest Editor
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.
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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
- intermolecular interactions
- cocrystals
- salts
- disproportionation
- crystal structure prediction
- space manufacturing
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