Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2025

DOI

10.1007/s44371-025-00373-y

Publication Title

Discover Chemistry

Volume

2

Issue

1

Pages

297

Abstract

Phytochemicals have long played a central role in drug discovery due to their structural diversity and broad biological activity. This review explores the progression of natural product-based drug development, highlighting how traditional knowledge and modern scientific tools are increasingly being combined. Medicinal plants identified through ethnopharmacological practices continue to guide the search for bioactive compounds, while advancements in screening techniques and structural analysis have improved the isolation and characterization of these substances. The review discusses the wide range of pharmacological actions found in plant-derived compounds. Their mechanisms of action and potential for synergistic effects are examined in detail. The application of molecular docking, QSAR modeling, and molecular dynamics simulations is also addressed, showing how these tools support the evaluation and optimization of phytochemicals as potential drug candidates. Increasingly, plant compounds are being used as starting points in the design of targeted therapies and are also being explored in combination with conventional drugs to enhance therapeutic outcomes. This review emphasizes the value of a cross-disciplinary approach that brings together traditional medicine, natural products chemistry, and computational research to support innovation in drug development.

Rights

© 2025 The Authors.

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if you modified the licensed material. You do not have permission under this license to share adapted material derived from this article or parts of it. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.

Data Availability

Article states: "Not applicable."

Original Publication Citation

Babalola, O. O., Bridget, K., Oyubu, G., Waheed, S. A., Ajiboye, S. A., Fakayode, A. E., Edema, A. A., Chukwuma, U. G., Tiamiyu, R. T., Fakayode, A. J., Adebimpe, H. O., Onyeagba, K. D., Fakunle, C. O., Ottu, P. O., & Gabriel, S. (2025). Integrating phytochemicals and in silico methods for modern drug discovery: A comprehensive review. Discover Chemistry, 2(1), Article 297. https://doi.org/10.1007/s44371-025-00373-y

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