Cancers constitute the most serious of the unresolved health issues. Due to their complexity, cancers are very difficult to
eradicate. This group of diseases has a great global spread in terms of morbidity and mortality, causing millions of deaths and
hundreds of thousands of new cases each year. In fact, according to the GLOBOCAN project, approximately 14.1 million new
cancer cases and 8.2 million deaths occurred in 2012 [1]. Meanwhile, estimates in 2014 indicated that the same amount of
people were expected to develop cancer [2].
Through the process known as drug discovery, scientific advances have provided chemotherapeutic options to fight against
different kinds of cancers. However, drug discovery is an expensive and time-consuming process. At the same time, the
emergence of resistance to current anti-cancer drugs, and the side effects associated with chemotherapeutic treatments are two
factors that raise concerns. Consequently, the scientific community currently working in cancer research faces great challenges
toward the discovery of new, versatile, and efficient anticancer drugs. Nowadays, it seems that new methodologies should be
introduced in order to design more effective and safer anti-cancer drugs. Simultaneously, current approaches must be revisited
in the sense of exploring new concepts and experimental evidence for ‘old cancer-related targets’. Therefore, the present special
issue is devoted to giving an overview of different visions in cancer research.
It is known that at the molecular level, p53 can be considered the guardian of the genome [3], and thus the first article of
this special issue analyzes the effect of different chemicals on the regulation of different cell death pathways via nucleocytoplasmic
shuttling of p53. A second article deals with the application of the Monte Carlo technique [4], which is used to
perform virtual screening of anti-cancer compounds. Three pieces of research focus on the role natural products (NPs) as
constant sources of anti-cancer drugs [5-8]. In this sense, one of these works discusses relevant aspects associated with the anticancer
activity such as species origin, druglikeness, target, and pathways. Another report reviews the application of different
virtual screening methods used in the search for anti-cancer NPs, where secondary metabolites are briefly discussed. Finally, an
article is devoted to providing an updated perspective regarding the importance of phytochemicals for anticancer drug
development.
Articles in this special issue mention promising alternative approaches that can be used to integrate diverse kinds of
chemical and biological data from a multi-scale perspective with the aim of designing potent and safer drugs [9-14]. Such
approaches can be successfully applied to anticancer drug discovery, and they open new horizons because all the essential
stages of drug discovery can be considered simultaneously: from protein inhibitors to compounds with the potential to become
clinical candidates [15-20]. The Guest Editor would like to acknowledge the time and effort of the authors, reviewers, members
of the Editorial Board, as well as the members of the Production and Management Departments, who have contributed to this
special issue.
