Cancer is a heterogeneous disease and is one of the significant health issues, especially in public health systems around the world. Natural products and their structural derivatives with outstanding chemical diversity have been investigated for potential anti‐cancer agents. Many natural products revealing potential anti‐cancer properties such as cytotoxicity, proliferation inhibition, induced apoptosis, retard metastasis, suppressing angiogenesis, and improved chemotherapy have been isolated from various plants and herbs. Several promising lead molecules have been identified recently; a few are in the clinical trial stage. This short communication summarises the role of natural products and their analogs in anti‐cancer drug developments, especially plant, marine and microbial‐based anti‐cancer agents.

Green chemistry is the basis for fast‐growing, eco‐friendly, alternative sustainable technologies for the development of chemical products without the use or generation of hazardous catalysts. The role of naturally occurring fruit juice as a catalyst or solvent in organic synthesis has gained focused interest across the globe. Lemon juice‐mediated synthesis has been widely explored recently as a highly significant, selective solvent and biocatalyst in organic synthesis. This review presents recent developments on lemon‐juice mediated transformations and their application to synthesize molecules or building blocks of pharmaceutical interest. We believe this review article will be of interest to researchers both in academic and industrial settings focused on developing novel pharmacophores from a green chemistry principles perspective.

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Cancer is considered as one of the leading causes of death in the world, especially patients with lung, pancreatic, or brain tumors are most likely to die of cancer and patients with prostate and breast cancer are at high risk of non-cancer death. As a result, there is on-going research regarding the development of new, safe and efficient anticancer agents. Coumarin-based naturally occurring compounds possess a broad spectrum of activity in medicinal chemistry such as anticancer, anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial, antioxidant agents, etc. Many researchers have synthesized coumarin-based novel therapeutic agents via molecular hybridization technique, which offers an excellent opportunity for development of novel compounds with improved biological activities by incorporating two or more pharmacophores. This review sheds light on the recent developments on coumarin based anticancer hybrid derivatives and their structure-activity relationships (SAR). This review serves as a medium that medicinal chemists could utilise for the design and synthesis of coumarin derivatives with significant pharmacological value as future anticancer agents.