Editorial

Anti-Cancer Agents in Medicinal Chemistry (ACA-MC) represents an essential review journal to scientists and pharmaceutical industry covering all the latest and outstanding developments in medicinal chemistry and rational drug design for the discovery of new anti-cancer agents. Since its launch in 2001, Anti-Cancer Agents in Medicinal Chemistry has successfully completed seven years of publication and will be soon qualified for an impact factor ranking. From 2008, the frequency of the journal has been increased to eight issues per year. Apart from general issues, special issues are also published. These “theme issues” contain reviews covering various important aspects of the selected topic and are written by experts in the field. This special Editorial Board Issue has been devoted to review articles written by ACA-MC Editorial Board Members on topics of their choice, mostly very close to their own research themes. Checkpoint kinase 1 (Chk1) plays a major role in the control mechanism at the G2/M checkpoint of the cell cycle. Since many cancer cells depend upon the G2/M checkpoint more than normal cells for the repair of drug-induced DNA damage, combination of a Chk1 inhibitor and a DNA-damaging agent should force selectively cancer cells to enter a premature and lethal mitosis. Several families of Chk1 inhibitors have been developed. Prudhomme et al. highlight the interest of pyrrolocarbazoles as potent Chk1 inhibitors. Colorectal cancer is the third most common cancer worldwide. The chemopreventive role of selenium and selenium derivatives as well as selenium in combination with antineoplastic agents is reviewed by Rudolf et al. Oceans are important sources of biologically active compounds. Rawat et al. report various classes of anti-cancer compounds of marine origin, their clinical status and synthetic advances of some of these compounds. In the course of anti-cancer research, targeting prodrug strategies have been extensively studied. Papot et al. focused their review on self-immolative linkers for tumor-activated prodrug therapy. Balanol is a well-known fungal metabolite exhibiting inhibitory activities toward kinases, in particular toward protein kinase A and protein kinase C. Gago et al. provide an overview of the structure-activity relationships of balanol analogs. Balanol is an ATPcompetitive kinase inhibitor. New methodologic developments in computational studies using the PKA-balanol complex are reported to allow a rational design for selective balanol analogs, to get an insight into the physical basis that could account for its potent and selective molecular recognition and also to account for the role of protein flexibility in molecular docking. Among the relevant anti-cancer compounds are aromatase inhibitors that are known to play a significant role in breast cancer, in particular for the treatment of postmenopausal breast cancer. Kinghorn et al. reviewed natural products, from plant, microbial and marine origin, exhibiting aromatase inhibitory activity. The review of Shtil et al. is focused on chemistry, photochemical and photophysical parameters of derivatives of bacteriochlorophyll a, and their applications in both cancer photodynamic therapy and boron neutron capture therapy. Kinesin spindle protein plays a major role during mitosis and recently several inhibitors have entered clinical trials as anti-cancer agents. The review of Zhang and Xu reports the various kinds of kinesin spindle protein inhibitors. * ≪ Ingenieur ≫ - ENSCC (France), ≪Docteur Ingenieur ≫ (University of Caen), ≪Docteur d'Etat ≫ - University Blaise Pascal (Clermont-Ferrand). Post-doctoral experience (Laboratory of Professor S. HANESSIAN, University of Montreal, Canada). 1963- Assistant professor University of Caen, 1981- Assistant professor then professor University Blaise Pascal Clermont-Ferrand; Research fields: Anti-cancer drugs, kinase inhibitors, topoisomerase I inhibitors, antimicrobial compounds. Author of 100 publications, 5 patents. Editor-in-Chief of Anti-Cancer Agents in Medicinal Chemistry.