Photopharmacology: Beyond Proof of Principle

Citations Over TimeTop 1% of 2014 papers

Abstract

Pharmacotherapy is often severely hindered by issues related to poor drug selectivity, including side effects, environmental toxicity, and the emergence of resistance. Lack of selectivity is caused by the inability to control drug activity in time and space. Photopharmacology aims at solving this issue by incorporating photoswitchable groups into the molecular structure of bioactive compounds. These switching units allow for the use of light as an external control element for pharmacological activity, which can be delivered with very high spatiotemporal precision. This Perspective presents the reader with the current state and outlook on photopharmacology. In particular, the principles behind photoregulation of bioactivity, the challenges of molecular design, and the possible therapeutic scenarios are discussed.

Related Papers

• → Chemical Space Mimicry for Drug Discovery(2017)112 cited
• → The Growing Importance of Chirality in 3D Chemical Space Exploration and Modern Drug Discovery Approaches for Hit-ID(2021)73 cited
• → Green Drug Discovery: Novel Fragment Space from the Biomass-Derived Molecule Dihydrolevoglucosenone (CyreneTM)(2023)10 cited
• → Fragment-based screening with natural products for novel anti-parasitic disease drug discovery(2019)27 cited
• → Synthetic Macrocycles in Small-Molecule Drug Discovery(2013)24 cited