Recent Developments in Anticancer Drug Discovery and Design

Abstract

Cancer continues to be one of the significant diseases in terms of global public health concern and thus the development and design of novel strategies for anticancer drug discovery become a perpetual need. The advances made in various fields such as molecular biology, medicinal chemistry, immunology, nanotechnology, and computer science have made it possible to move beyond the traditional chemotherapy to precision-oriented and mechanism-based treatment of cancers. The aim of this review is to discuss the recent advancements in molecular targeting, precision medicine, biomarker guided drug design, synthetic lethality, drug resistant therapy, and tumor microenvironment targeting. Moreover, the article touches upon the increased use of AI, computer-aided drug design, multi-omics approaches, CRISPR-based screens, patient-derived models, and novel trial designs for accelerating cancer drug development. Although much success has been achieved in this field, obstacles like tumor heterogeneity, drug resistance, biomarker validation, manufacturing difficulties, and translating the findings into practice still exist. In general, the combination of precision medicine, computational approaches, and multidisciplinary collaboration is anticipated to facilitate the development of safer and more efficient anticancer drugs.