As people around the world regard 2020 as the year of COVID-19, the medical community considers this year to be the second-best year, shared with the year 1996, with respect to the number of drug molecules approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Both years, 2020 and 1996, had a record of 53 new drug molecules approved by the FDA. In the year 2020, 53 new chemical entities and 13 biological medicines were approved, including 10 monoclonal antibodies, 2 antibody-drug conjugates, 3 peptides, and 2 oligonucleotides. Among them, most of the compounds were found to have fluorine or fluorine-containing functional groups exhibiting numerous pharmacological activities. Herein, we summarized the trifluoromethyl (TFM, -CF₃)-group-containing FDA-approved drugs for the last 20 years. This article specially features and details the previous 20-year literature data, covering CF₃-incorporated potential drug molecules, including their syntheses and uses for various diseases and disorders. The review covers the detailed chemistry of 19 FDA-approved drugs in the past 20 years, which contains the TFM group as one of the pharmacophores.

Due to the multifaceted pharmacological activities of chalcones, these scaffolds have been considered one of the most privileged frameworks in the drug discovery process. Structurally, chalcones are α, β-unsaturated carbonyl functionalities with two aryl or heteroaryl units. Amongst the numerous pharmacological activities explored for chalcone derivatives, the development of novel chalcone analogs for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is among the research topics of most interest. Chalcones possess numerous advantages, such as smaller molecular size, opportunities for further structural modification thereby altering the physicochemical properties, cost-effectiveness, and convenient synthetic methodology. The present review highlights the recent evidence of chalcones as a privileged structure in AD drug development processes. Different classes of chalcone-derived analogs are summarized for the easy understanding of the previously reported analogs as well as the importance of certain functionalities in exhibiting cholinesterase inhibition. In this way, this review will shed light on the medicinal chemistry fraternity for the design and development of novel promising chalcone candidates for the treatment of AD.

Halogens have been reported to play a major role in the inhibition of monoamine oxidase (MAO), relating to diverse cognitive functions of the central nervous system. Pyrazoline/halogenated pyrazolines were investigated for their inhibitory activities against human monoamine oxidase-A and -B. Halogen substitutions on the phenyl ring located at the fifth position of pyrazoline showed potent MAO-B inhibition. Compound 3-(4-ethoxyphenyl)-5-(4-fluorophenyl)-4,5-dihydro-1H-pyrazole (EH7) showed the highest potency against MAO-B with an IC₅₀ value of 0.063 µM. The potencies against MAO-B were increased in the order of –F (in EH7) > –Cl (EH6) > –Br (EH8) > –H (EH1). The residual activities of most compounds for MAO-A were > 50% at 10 µM, except for EH7 and EH8 (IC₅₀ = 8.38 and 4.31 µM, respectively). EH7 showed the highest selectivity index (SI) value of 133.0 for MAO-B, followed by EH6 at > 55.8. EH7 was a reversible and competitive inhibitor of MAO-B in kinetic and reversibility experiments with a Ki value of 0.034 ± 0.0067 µM. The molecular dynamics study documented that EH7 had a good binding affinity and motional movement within the active site with high stability. It was observed by MM-PBSA that the chirality had little effect on the overall binding of EH7 to MAO-B. Thus, EH7 can be employed for the development of lead molecules for the treatment of various neurodegenerative disorders.

Objectives: Cancer is a disease characterized by uncontrollable, irreversible, independent, autonomous, uncoordinated and relatively unlimited and abnormal over growth of tissues. Breast cancer is the second most common type of cancer after lung cancer. The aim of the study is to carry out the docking studies, synthesis and anti-tumour activities of Benzothiazole derivatives containing oxadiazole groups or amino groups. Methods: The docking studies of benzothiazole derivatives were done with known anti-cancer targets like oestrogen receptor by using argus lab and auto dock programmes with the standard drug tamoxifen. Based upon the results obtained from the molecular modeling, the derivatives were selected for the synthesis. The synthesized compounds were characterized by melting point, TLC, IR, ¹H NMR, ¹³CNMR, MASS spectral data and screened for their in- vitro anti-cancer activities. Results: The docking scores obtained for benzothiazole derivatives (BT1,BT2,BT3,BT4) and std.tamoxifen from the preliminary docking program by using argusLab were- 9.68, -9.4,-9.59, -11.1988,-9.71 and by using autodock program were -6.29, -5.25,-7.19,-7.48,-3.86 respectively. All the four derivatives were synthesized, characterized and subjected to in vitro anticancer screening by MTT assay in breast cancer (MCF-7) cell lines. Compounds DBT1, DBT2, DBT3 were the most active compounds against MCF-7 cell lines with IC50 of 70.0, 64.0 and 65.0, respectively. Conclusion: All the four derivatives show good docking scores when compared to standard drug and can be concluded that all the synthesized benzothiazole ligands show good anti-cancer property. Keywords: Benzothiazole, Oxadiazole, Estrogen receptor, Anticancer targets.

Tuberculosis still remain one of the most burdened infectious disease in the world especially with the emergence of drug resistance to the current drug regimen. It is the second most leading reason for infectious disease related death and with the emergence of MDR and XDR TB there is a consistent need to develop novel drugs with disparate modes of actions. Our objective is to design novel benzimidazole derivatives with anti-tubercular activity. A series 4-(1H-benzimidazole-2-ylmethyl) aniline derivatives were designed using ACD/Chem Sketch and their molecular properties and ADMET properties were designed using BIOVIA Discovery Studio. Target proteins were chosen in comparison to the standard drug isoniazid which are (Enoyl-(acyl-carrier-protein) reductase, Catalase-peroxidase, Dihydrofolate reductase) and a newly developed target protein MmpL3 were taken. CDOCKER energy and CDOCKER INTERACTION energy of both ligand and standard drug on all the target candidates were determined using BIOVIA Discovery Studio. The CDOCKER energy and CDOCKER INTERACTION energy of the newly developed ligand on the above mentioned targets were found to be higher in compared to standard drug, which signifies that the ligand molecules have higher specificity towards the target than the standard drug. Newly designed derivatives were found to have a better docking score towards the target protein enoyl-acyl carrier protein reductase and MmpL3 both of which aids to the development of mycobacterial cell wall synthesis therefore blocking both or either one of the protein will result in the depletion of mycolic acid concentration in mycobacterial cell wall resulting in loss of structural integrity of bacterial cell wall resulting in mycobacterial death.