RSC Medicinal Chemistry is delighted to present our Editor’s choice collection
This collection showcases some of the best articles published in the journal, handpicked by our Associate Editors and Editorial Board members.
Below we have a selection of recent RSC Medicinal Chemistry articles chosen by Associate Editor Sally-Ann Poulsen (Griffith University, Australia). Take a look at which articles she chose and why.
Sally-Ann’s favourite articles
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Property-based optimisation of PROTACs
James S. Scott*, Iacovos N. Michaelides and Markus Schade RSC Med. Chem., 2025, 16, 449-456 |
Sally-Ann’s comments:
“In this Opinion article the challenges faced by those working in the PROTAC field is discussed against the backdrop of the promise of this new frontier in drug development. I chose this manuscript as it prompts us to remain open minded about what is possible in the field of medicinal chemistry. As the journals’ readership has committed their careers to advancing medicinal chemistry, I hope the take aways in this Opinion article are relevant to their own research.”
| Cytotoxicity of phosphoramidate, bis-amidate and cycloSal prodrug metabolites against tumour and normal cells (Open Access)
Rebecca E. Farrell, Harrison Steele, Ryan J. Middleton, Danielle Skropeta* and Guo-Jun Liu* RSC Med. Chem., 2024, 15, 1973-1981 |
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Sally-Ann’s comments:
“This manuscript describes some important aspects in the development of prodrugs including the assessment of potential off-target activity of prodrug metabolites vital in the drug design and biological evaluation process. This study spotlights the close link between classical medicinal chemistry and chemical probe development, where a range of experimental considerations are vital to generate valuable results.”
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Structure-based virtual screening of unbiased and RNA-focused libraries to identify new ligands for the HCV IRES model system (Open Access)
Elisabeth Kallert, Laura Almena Rodriguez, Jan-Åke Husmann, Kathrin Blatt and Christian Kersten* RSC Med. Chem., 2024, 15, 1527-1538 |
Sally-Ann’s comments:
“This paper focuses on intentional targeting of RNA for drug discovery and contributes to the development of methods to identify small molecules for binding to RNA. As methods are still largely under development, of interest is the combination of structure-based virtual screening with biophysical screening methods.”
Meet the Editor
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Sally-Ann Poulsen, RSC Medicinal Chemistry Associate Editor
Griffith University, Australia Sally-Ann Poulsen is at the Institute for Biomedicine and Glycomics, Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia. She holds a PhD in medicinal chemistry also from Griffith University, receiving a University Medal for academic excellence. Immediately following her PhD, she was recipient of a Royal Society & National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Howard Florey Research Fellowship to undertake research at the University of Cambridge. On returning to Australia, she was awarded an Australian Research Council QEII Fellowship, followed by an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship. Sally-Ann works with collaborators in Australia and internationally, both from academia and industry on projects related to the development of new chemical probes for pathogens such as malaria and giardia and the application of native state mass spectrometry to characterise complex biomolecules and their interactions including for contemporary therapeutic modalities such as targeted protein degradation, fragment-based drug discovery and RNA targeting. Her research is defined by the application of chemistry expertise to address complex questions across biology. She was appointed as a Fellow of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute (RACI) in 2017 and was Chair of the RACI Medicinal Chemistry and Chemical Biology Division 2021-2023. She is the author of more than one hundred publications in the field of medicinal chemistry and chemical biology. |
We hope you enjoyed reading these articles. Keep an eye out on our collection webpage for more of our Editors’ favourite articles.
