Publications by authors named "Francisco Jaime Bezerra Mendonca"

Cancer is one of the most urgent problems in medicine. In recent years, cancer is the second leading cause of death globally. In search for more effective and less toxic treatment against cancer, natural products are used as prototypes in the synthesis of new anticancer drugs.

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The term refers to a group of infections caused by various classes of pathogens, including protozoa, viruses, bacteria, and helminths, most often affecting impoverished populations without adequate sanitation living in close contact with infectious vectors and domestic animals. The fact that these diseases were historically not considered priorities for pharmaceutical companies made the available treatments options obsolete, precarious, outdated, and in some cases nonexistent. The use of plants for medicinal, religious, and cosmetic purposes has a history dating back to the emergence of humanity.

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Since ancient times, natural products have been used in treating various diseases effectively and safely. Nowadays, these natural compounds are submitted to sophisticated methodologies from isolation, computing, analytical, and even serving as pharmacophore suggestions for synthesis. The substances extracted from marine species, plants, and microorganisms present activities beneficial to our health, including protection against malignant tumors.

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The genus Cissampelos comprises of 21 species which have a wide global distribution and various pharmacological activities such as analgesic and antipyretic, antiinflammatory, anti-allergic, bronchodilation, and immunomodulation among others. Several compounds, mainly alkaloids with differing biological activities have been isolated from this genus. We will highlight antipyretic activities, anti-inflammatory, antiallergic, bronchodilatory, and immunomodulatory activities.

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Molecular Hybridization is an approach in rational drug design where new chemical entities are obtained by combining two or more pharmacophoric units from different bioactive compounds into a single molecule. Through this approach, medicinal chemists hope that the new hybrid derivative presents: better affinity and efficacy when compared to the parent drugs; a modified selectivity profile with improvement over pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic restrictions; dual or multiple modes of action; reduction of undesirable side effects; decreases in drug-drug interactions; reduced emergence or spread of drug resistance in microorganisms and protozoans; and lower cost. The approach has been successfully used by many research groups around the world and has had very promising results with diseases having multifactorial profiles, like Alzheimer´s, Parkinson´s disease, cancer, inflammation, and hypertension among others.

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Natural products are compounds extracted from plants, marine organisms, fungi or bacteria. Many researches for new drugs are based on these natural molecules, mainly by beneficial effects on health, health, efficacy, and therapeutic safety. Leishmaniosis, Chagas disease and African sleeping sickness are neglected diseases caused by the Leishmania and Trypanosoma ssp.

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