The role of chemical sciences in 21st century cancer drug discovery.

Extract: The chemical sciences are increasingly overlapping with many aspects of the study of biological molecules at the molecular level. By contrast, the traditional view of chemistry, at least as far as cancer therapeutics is concerned, has been a much narrower one as a tool of the cancer drug discovery process, generally being solely concerned with synthesis. The thesis that we develop in this short review is that the role of the chemical sciences in cancer therapeutics increasingly covers far more than this, and requires the active involvement of many aspects of the subject if the full potential of our knowledge of the cellular, molecular, and genetic basis of cancer is to be translated into clinically useful therapeutics. Effective drug discovery requires an understanding of small molecule and macromolecule physico-chemical properties, mechanism of action, structure and reactivity of individual components (including targets) of pathways, and the ways in which they interact together by means of both covalent and non-covalent recognition and signal transfer. It is no coincidence that several effective clinical agents have been discovered by creative chemists who possess a deep understanding of these topics, especially of the relationships between the structure and reactivity properties of a particular class of molecules, leading to insights into their potential as anticancer agents.