Using NMR Spectroscopy in the Fragment‐Based Drug Discovery of Small‐Molecule Anticancer Targeted Therapies

Against the challenge of providing personalized cancer care, the development of targeted therapies stands as a promising approach. The discovery of these agents can benefit from fragment‐based drug discovery (FBDD) methods that help guide ligand design and provide key structural information on the targets of interest. In particular, nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy is a promising biophysical tool in fragment discovery due to its detection capabilities and versatility. This review provides an overview of FBDD, describes the basis of NMR‐based fragment screening, summarizes some exciting technical advances reported over the past decades, and closes with a discussion of selected case studies where this technique has been used as part of drug discovery campaigns to produce lead compounds towards the design of anti‐cancer targeted therapies.