Natural and Synthetic Compounds: Processes, Challenges, and Opportunities for Human Health and Environmental Sustainability

Dear Colleagues,

Associations between natural and synthetic compounds are essential in improving human health and supporting environmental sustainability. Nature is a valuable source when it comes to developing and designing lead compounds for drugs that could significantly improve treatments for serious diseases, enhancing general health and wellbeing. Herbal systems are essential in healthcare because they provide natural sources for approximately 60% of chemotherapeutic agents. The emergence of cutting-edge technologies and methods to improve the drug design process has provided new ways of processing complex natural products, using their structures to develop new and innovative drug candidates with minimized side effects. Ensuring sustainability in research on natural and synthetic compounds is fundamental in adopting eco-friendly approaches to human health and environmental sustainability.

In this Special Issue of Processes, we will summarize current trends in drug discovery and development, while also reporting the latest applications for natural and synthetic compounds to combat current and future health challenges, as well as strategies and computational approaches that facilitate the design of new and innovative drugs with greater accuracy, low costs, and high efficiency. Furthermore, this Special Issue will explore the connections between natural and synthetic compounds, highlighting their individual or combined potential to provide therapeutic and environmental sustainability benefits.

This Special Issue welcomes original research papers, communications, reviews, and other articles reporting recent applications for both natural and synthetic compounds in drug discovery and development, employing advanced methods and tool and new protocols, targets, sustainable strategies, and innovative technologies for a sustainable future, with a key role in next-generation drug discovery. These advances will not only improve efficiency and effectiveness in the design of new therapeutic agents but will also ensure that the processes involved are environmentally friendly and sustainable.

Dr. Alina Bora
Dr. Luminita Crisan
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 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

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. Processes is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly 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 2400 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.