Medicinal chemistry and pharmaceutical sciences are among the most widely distributed disciplines in Italian universities and industries, with a significant presence also in nonacademic research centers. Indeed, these disciplines have strongly characterized Italian research, at least starting from the second half of the last century.
Italy has been the stage of many important success stories in the field of drug discovery and development, such as the characterization of the pharmacological effects of curare and its derivatives, as well as their development to drugs, which has been carried out by Giovanni Battista Marini Bettolo in collaboration with Daniel Bovet (1957 Nobel prize in Physiology or Medicine) at the Istituto Superiore di Sanità (Rome, Italy).1 In 1968, researchers of Farmitalia laboratories (Milan, Italy) patented the doxorubicin anticancer agent (formerly known as Adriamycin, after the Adriatic sea), which was obtained from a new strain of Streptomyces peucetius isolated from a soil sample collected in the south of Italy.2−4 More recently, the medicinal chemistry team at IRBM Science Park in Pomezia (near Rome, Italy) contributed to the discovery and development of Raltegravir (Isentress), the first-in-class inhibitor of HIV-1 integrase that is an innovative and highly efficient antiretroviral agent.5 On a parallel topic, Italy has long been at the forefront of vaccine research. Starting from the development of a serum against anthrax in 1895 by Achille Sclavo, ambitious goals have been achieved particularly in Siena (Italy) including the recent development of a Meningitis B vaccine (Bexsero) through the Reverse Vaccinology technique by Rino Rappuoli.6,7
Although the list of success stories is notably longer than I reported above, these examples clearly illustrate the tradition of pharmaceutical and medicinal chemistry studies in Italy; a tradition that has been strengthen and consolidated starting from the end of the 1960s, when a 5-year academic degree course in Chemical and Pharmaceutical Technologies (CTF) was been established in Italian universities. To date, it is one of the most populated and promising academic degrees, which opens the door to multiple occupational opportunities for young graduate students both in the academia and industry sectors.
Notwithstanding the significant lack of funding for Italian research from both National and International sources, nowadays Italian medicinal chemistry research has reached outstanding levels in multiple fields, such as cancer, viral infections not limited to HIV/AIDS, neglected tropical disease, cardiovascular diseases, and many others. Accordingly, the aim of this Special Issue is to bring together works from leading research groups established in Italy and to highlight the main topics and results in the field of medicinal chemistry. Several researchers submitted their work to this issue, which resulted in over 40 publications. The publications in this Special Issue cover the forefront topics in medicinal chemistry and drug design, such as cancer, neglected tropical diseases, viral infections, neurodegenerative disorders, and technological approaches including computational studies, organic synthesis, biochemistry/biology, and drug delivery. Compared to the regular publications in ACS Medicinal Chemistry Letters, it is notable that this special issue is enriched with works based on or supported by computational studies. This should not be surprising, as molecular modeling gained significant importance in current medicinal chemistry research in Italy and emerged as an invaluable tool either to predict the behavior of new molecules and to rationalize experimental data.
Finally, I wish to thank all the contributors to this Special Issue, as well as the people that provided technical support. I’m confident that Italian researches will be highly appreciated by the international medicinal chemistry community.
Views expressed in this editorial are those of the author and not necessarily the views of the ACS.
References
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