Peptide Drug Discovery and Development
A special issue of Pharmaceuticals (ISSN 1424-8247).
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (20 September 2013) | Viewed by 70428
Special Issue Editors
Interests: drug discovery; drug delivery; peptide engineering; high throughput screening; vaccine design; biomaterials and diagnostics
Interests: cytokine signal transduction; peptide inhibitors of oncoproteins; breast cancer research; experimental tumor therapy
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
The journal “Pharmaceuticals” is planning to publish a special issue covering the topic “Peptide drug discovery and development” and we are inviting you to contribute an article to this volume.
Peptides represent an attractive class of molecules for the design of new drugs, lead structures, drug carriers and excepients. Recent developments in peptide synthesis techniques and high-throughput screening platforms have created enthusiasm and interest in the design and discovery of novel peptides for a broad range of biological and pharmacological applications. Advances in peptide engineering have helped to overcome traditional limitations in peptide drug development such as poor systemic stability, rapid clearance and low binding affinities to biological targets. Currently there are nearly one hundred peptide based drug candidates in clinical trials, a dramatic increase compared to a decade ago. These developments signal a ‘second wave’ in peptide drug development.
The past two decades have also witnessed the derivation of chemically modified peptide constructs. They make use of non-natural amino acids, sugars and peptide bonds to provide natural peptide backbones with desirable structural and functional properties. These ‘peptidomimetics’ have created exciting opportunities to engineer unique and complementary physical, chemical, structural and biological activities within the peptide sequence. The ability of peptides to recognize structural domains which are not limited to conventional drug binding pockets, makes them exciting leads for drug discovery. Peptide based drugs will therefore have a significant impact in the near future for the treatment of a broad range of indications including cancer, infectious diseases, neurodegenerative diseases and inflammation.
We would like you to share your contributions to the advances and opportunities in this burgeoning field of peptide drug discovery and development for this special issue. Areas of interest include:
- Discovery of peptide drugs, prodrugs, formulations and drug carriers
- Peptide drugs in oncology, neurology, inflammation and other physiological disorders
- Peptide based vaccines and immunomodulating agents
- In vitro and in vivo validation of peptide drugs
- Advances in synthetic peptide design and screening techniques
- Design and engineering of peptidomimetics and other novel hybrid peptide constructs
- Approaches for improving peptide stability and target recognition
- Peptide Theranostics
Dr. Pankaj Karande
Prof. Dr. Bernd Groner
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.
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