This Special Issue will focus on the value and impact of academic and industrial collaborations on drug discovery programs and technologies. Submit your manuscript by May 31, 2025.

Two people are shaking hands, one in a doctor's coat. The image is overlaid with various capsule and pill graphics.

Due to the high interest in enabling chemistry technologies in drug discovery, ACS Medicinal Chemistry Letters is now accepting submissions for a Virtual Special Issue on “Academic and Industrial Collaborations in Drug Discovery”. We invite submissions of Letters, Notes, Technical Notes, Viewpoints, and Microperspectives highlighting the importance of academic and industrial collaborations in drug discovery. To learn more about the topic and what we are looking for in this special issue, read our recently published Editorial.

Topics include, but are not limited to:

  • New synthetic methodology/total synthesis routes
  • Building blocks for parallel synthesis work or novel fragments for fragment-based drug discovery purposes.
  • Photoredox chemistry or catalyst development
  • High-throughput experimentation-enabled reaction optimization
  • Chemistry techniques for DNA-encoded library production and screening
  • Chemical proteomics
  • Antibody–drug candidates
  • Targeted protein degradation/molecular glues
  • Small-molecule RNA regulation

Organizing Editors

Stevan W. Djuric, Associate Editor, ACS Medicinal Chemistry Letters
University of Virginia, United States

Eric Voight, Guest Editor
AbbVie, United States

Danielle Schultz, Guest Editor
Merck, United States

Submission Information

We welcome submissions for this Special Issue through May 31, 2025. For more information on submission requirements, please visit the journal’s Author Guidelines page.

Papers accepted for publication for this Special Issue will be available ASAP (as soon as publishable) online as soon as they are accepted. After all submissions have been published, they will then be compiled online on a dedicated landing page to form the Special Issue. Manuscripts submitted for consideration will undergo the full rigorous peer review process expected from ACS journals.

How to Submit

  • Log in to the ACS Publishing Center.
  • Select the “Journals” tab.
  • Search for ACS Medicinal Chemistry Letters.
  • Click "Submit."
  • Select your manuscript type, and, under "Special Issue Selection," choose "Academic and Industrial Collaborations in Drug Discovery."

If you have any general questions regarding submission to this Special Issue, please contact Stevan W. Djuric (djuric-office@medchemlett.acs.org).

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