Drug Discovery from Animal Venoms
A special issue of Toxins (ISSN 2072-6651). This special issue belongs to the section "Animal Venoms".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (1 March 2021) | Viewed by 8431
Special Issue Editor
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Animal venom toxins are the source of cutting-edge medicines such as tirofiban, eptifibatide for heart attacks, captopril for heart failure and high blood pressure, and exenatide for diabetes. Other toxin-derived agents are in clinical trials for autoimmune disorders and cancer, for example.
Found in over 150,000 venomous animal species, the Earth's toxin arsenal comprises millions of toxins targeting a myriad of receptors of medical significance. Of these toxins, 99% are unexplored due to the difficulty of acquiring specimens, tiny sample sizes, and limitations of screening platforms. Once a toxin is identified as promising, its therapeutic potential is often hampered by its selectivity, efficacy, or chemical structure. Existing and emerging technologies, however, are available to tackle these challenges.
This Special Issue of Toxins on "Drug Discovery from Animal Venoms" will facilitate and stimulate the development and innovation of venoms-to-drugs. The issue is reviewing the full scope of drug discovery pathways, from venom gland to clinical use, with a focus on the advantages and opportunities, as well as challenges and limitations unique to components of animal venoms (collectively referred below as "toxins", and including all venom components).
Articles may include, but are not restricted to the following subjects: what makes animal toxins attractive templates for medicines?; current medicines and diagnostics from toxins; large-scale identification of toxins; therapeutic target identification and validation by toxins; from venoms to hits and leads: approaches and platforms; the challenges and solutions of lead optimization and preclinical development that are unique to toxin-like peptides and proteins; peptidomimetics; peptides, biologics as therapeutics; toxin-derived agents currently in clinical trials; case study: the discovery and development of an approved toxin-based drug; the future: a thought-provoking look at the potential of toxins in biomedicine and bioengineering as impacted by other natural science disciplines, disruptive technologies, from genome editing to AI, to nanorobotics, and beyond.
Dr. Zoltan TakacsGuest 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.
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 double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Toxins 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 2700 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
- animal venom
- toxin
- peptide
- protein
- enzyme
- drug discovery
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