Medicinal Chemistry of Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs): From Targets to Drugs

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Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) are a group of infectious diseases that affect thousands of people all over the world. These diseases mainly affect the population that lives in poverty and lack sanitation, prevalent mainly in tropical and subtropical countries. In this sense, they are called "neglected" due to the low investment in P&D in pharmaceutical companies' discovery and development of new agents. Thus, developing new drugs against these diseases is one of the two biggest challenges for academic researchers around the world, and increasingly, there is a need for advances in medicinal chemistry methods and the identification of molecular targets for the design of innovative drugs that can put an end to these threats. Finally, here we will present methods used in medicinal chemistry in recent years in the design of drugs against these agents, with a focus on the development of new compounds against Nmyristoyltransferase, nitroreductases, topoisomerases, pyrimidine synthesis pathway, and mitochondrial alterations constantly explored against various NTDs. We hope this chapter serves as a guide for researchers worldwide searching for innovative drugs that can finally help these people and improve the health of the world's population.