Dear Colleagues,

Multivalency is a hallmark of biomolecular recognition that applies to nucleic acids, proteins, and carbohydrates. Multivalent binding by synthetic nano-constructs is inspired by numerous biological systems such as viruses, and bears strong potentials in biological/biomedical applications, for instance, for the treatment of cancer or infectious diseases, but also in targeted drug/gene/protein delivery and biosensing/bioimaging. Besides the rational or trial-and-error molecular engineering of multivalent systems, self-assembly approaches, using supramolecular or dynamic covalent chemistries, have emerged in the last two decades and have attracted growing interest as a successful strategy for the identification of multivalent binders, for instance, whose formation is template-assisted from dynamic combinatorial libraries. On top of that, those multivalent self-assembled systems are dynamic and responsive, which enables the adaptation and the smart control of their self-assembly and disassembly by physico-chemical effectors. This Special Issue of Molecules will be devoted to showcasing how self-assembly approaches can be implemented to provide the next generation of multivalent systems for biological applications.

Dr. Sébastien Ulrich
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Molecules is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• Multivalency
• Biomolecular recognition
• Self-assembly
• Supramolecular chemistry
• Dynamic covalent/combinatorial chemistry