About this Research Topic
Recent developments in chemical biology including chemoproteomics and encoded chemical library, novel small molecule probes/labels in imaging and assays, and new series of bioorthogonal reactions have been leading interdisciplinary frontiers in life sciences. Many of them were employed as powerful tools in drug discovery. On the other hand, new trends in medicinal chemistry and therapeutics design like targeted protein degraders (PROTACs and molecular glues) and covalent warheaded drugs have boosted the renovation in chemical biology. Chemical biology and drug discovery are getting increasingly connected and an emerging fact is, more and more pharmaceutical researchers are drawing inspirations from chemical biology advances and involved in chemical biology driven drug discovery. In the perspective of its perfect characteristics, it is of great importance to discuss how cutting-edge chemical biology could help the development of drug discovery and therapeutics design.
Traditional pharmaceutical drug discovery is almost exclusively focused on directly controlling protein activity to cure diseases. However, activity-based drug discovery usually faced off-target effects or non-druggable problems. Since the 21st century, novel tools invented by chemical biologists have partially changed the workflow in discovery of new drugs and therapeutics, including allosteric protein modulators, DNA encoded chemical library (DECL), targeted protein degraders (PROTACs and molecular glues) and so on. The goal for this Research Topic is to cover all aspects related to recent research innovations in chemical biology that inspire drug discovery. Novel chemical biology tools like probes and modification reactions, platforms in imaging and assays, as well as newly founded principles and working models of chemical biology to discover new drug leads. Moreover, it is highly encouraged to propose new mechanisms of drug design and the underlying chemical biology process using advanced characterizations (cryo-electron microscope) or computational modules (especially machine learning and artificial intelligence).
We welcome Original Research, Review, Mini Review and Perspective articles on themes including, but not limited to:
• Molecular tools, including novel dyes and labels for proteins and nucleic acids, modular moieties to construct drug leads, bioorthogonal reaction for druggable target recognition and protein modifications.
• Chemical biology platforms for target fishing and determination, designs and applications of covalent warheads for drug leads, small molecule tools to construct allosteric modulators of enzymes.
• How chemical biology advances could change the conventional structure-based and computer aided drug design. New insights and new trends.
• Design and synthesis of targeted protein degradation systems, like proteolysis targeting chimeras (PROTACs), molecular glues, chaperone-mediated protein degradation (CHAMP), lysosome-targeting chimeras (LYTACs), etc.
• Biomacromolecules as therapeutics, nucleic acid drugs, aptamers, nanovaccines, CRISPR-based therapy.
• Nanotherapeutics, targeted photothermal and chemodynamics treatments, molecular and nanoscale tools for multimodal imaging and guided surgery.
Traditional pharmaceutical drug discovery is almost exclusively focused on directly controlling protein activity to cure diseases. However, activity-based drug discovery usually faced off-target effects or non-druggable problems. Since the 21st century, novel tools invented by chemical biologists have partially changed the workflow in discovery of new drugs and therapeutics, including allosteric protein modulators, DNA encoded chemical library (DECL), targeted protein degraders (PROTACs and molecular glues) and so on. The goal for this Research Topic is to cover all aspects related to recent research innovations in chemical biology that inspire drug discovery. Novel chemical biology tools like probes and modification reactions, platforms in imaging and assays, as well as newly founded principles and working models of chemical biology to discover new drug leads. Moreover, it is highly encouraged to propose new mechanisms of drug design and the underlying chemical biology process using advanced characterizations (cryo-electron microscope) or computational modules (especially machine learning and artificial intelligence).
We welcome Original Research, Review, Mini Review and Perspective articles on themes including, but not limited to:
• Molecular tools, including novel dyes and labels for proteins and nucleic acids, modular moieties to construct drug leads, bioorthogonal reaction for druggable target recognition and protein modifications.
• Chemical biology platforms for target fishing and determination, designs and applications of covalent warheads for drug leads, small molecule tools to construct allosteric modulators of enzymes.
• How chemical biology advances could change the conventional structure-based and computer aided drug design. New insights and new trends.
• Design and synthesis of targeted protein degradation systems, like proteolysis targeting chimeras (PROTACs), molecular glues, chaperone-mediated protein degradation (CHAMP), lysosome-targeting chimeras (LYTACs), etc.
• Biomacromolecules as therapeutics, nucleic acid drugs, aptamers, nanovaccines, CRISPR-based therapy.
• Nanotherapeutics, targeted photothermal and chemodynamics treatments, molecular and nanoscale tools for multimodal imaging and guided surgery.
Keywords: Drug Discovery, Chemical Biology, Therapeutics, Nanomedicine, Allosteric Modulators, Kinase Inhibitors, Covalent Warhead, Bioorthogonal Reaction, Chemoproteomics, Aptamers, Nucleic Acid Drugs, Protein Degraders, Multimode Imaging, Theranostics, DNA Encode
Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.
