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 Editorial Board member Professor Lyn Jones (Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, USA). Take a look at which articles he chose and why.
Lyn’s favourite articles
Discovery of an orally bioavailable, CNS active pan-mutant RET kinase heterobifunctional degrader
Douglas L. Orsi, Kiel E. Lazarski, Reina Improgo, R. V. Agafonov, Jae Young Ahn, Joelle Baddour, Katelyn Cassidy, Prasoon Chaturvedi, Kyle S. Cole, Richard W. Deibler, W. Austin Elam, Mark E. Fitzgerald, Victoria J. Garza, Andrew Good, Christopher H. Hulton, Marta Isasa, Katrina L. Jackson, Ping Li, Yanke Liang, Ryan E. Michael, Morgan Welzel O’Shea, Moses Moustakim, Samantha Perino, Fazlur Rahman, Matthew J. Schnaderbeck, Nicholas P. Stone, Bonnie Tillotson, Gesine K. Veits, Abigail Vogelaar, Jeremy L. Yap, Robert T. Yu, Hongwei Huang and James A. Henderson*
RSC Med. Chem., 2025, 16, 4781-4795
Lyn‘s comments:
“This study delivers a first-of-its-kind RET degrader – oral, brain-penetrant, and pan-mutant – designed to outsmart resistance where inhibitors fall short.”
Analysis of the structural diversity of heterocycles amongst European medicines agency approved pharmaceuticals (2014–2023) (Open Access)
Matthew Ward & Niamh M. O’Boyle*
RSC Med. Chem., 2025, 16, 4540-45770
Lyn’s comments:
“A simple yet important analysis of heterocycles found in drugs – essential reading for trainee medicinal chemists.”
A twist in the tale: shifting from covalent targeting of a tyrosine in JAK3 to a lysine in MK2 (Open Access)
Laura Hillebrand, Guiqun Wang, Alexander Rasch, Benedikt Masberg, Apirat Chaikuad, Thales Kronenberger, Ellen Günther, Michael Forster, Antti Poso, Michael Lämmerhofer, Stefan A. Laufer, Stefan Knapp and Matthias Gehringer*
RSC Med. Chem., 2025, 16, 4906-4919
Lyn’s comments:
“This paper explores tyrosine-targeted covalent inhibition in kinases, revealing unexpected lysine engagement by a fluorosulfate MK2 inhibitor and highlighting the untapped potential of nontraditional electrophiles.”
Meet the Editor
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Lyn Jones, RSC Medicinal Chemistry Editorial Board member
Lyn Jones completed his PhD studies in synthetic organic chemistry at the University of Nottingham, and his postdoctoral research at The Scripps Research Institute, California in chemical biology. He joined Pfizer Sandwich (UK) as a medicinal chemistry team leader, eventually becoming Head of Chemical Biology and Lead Discovery Technologies. He transferred to Pfizer Cambridge (USA) to become Head of Rare Disease Chemistry, and Head of Chemical Biology. He then helped establish Jnana Therapeutics as Head of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, before moving to Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston as Chief Scientist of the Center for Protein Degradation. He is currently Principal Investigator and Faculty Member of the Department of Pediatric Oncology and Chemical Biology Program at DFCI, and his lab focusses on the development of next-generation covalent chemical biology with the objective of expanding the druggable proteome. He has been recognized with Royal Society of Chemistry awards for his contributions to HIV, COPD and rare genetic disease research. He has considerable experience working in many other disease areas, including cancer, inflammation, and pain. He is also an elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, the Royal Society of Biology, and the Linnean Society, and was recently recognized as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and as Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales, for his contributions to 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.
