In her field of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, Dr. Nikolovska-Coleska's research focus is on small-molecules as new molecularly targeted therapies for cancer. Molecularly targeted therapy aims to interfere with the function of the biological pathway within the cancer cell that is critical to its growth or survival. By targeting a unique characteristic of the tumor, cancer cells will be specifically killed, providing effective cancer treatment with significantly fewer side effects. She develops and uses series of complementary biochemical and biophysical assays, functional and cell based assays which are used for screening of compound libraries, as well as for validating and characterizing of identified small molecules. Such well-characterized small-molecules will serve as (a) pharmacological tools for elucidation and understanding of the functions of corresponding targets and (b) promising lead compounds for further optimization toward our ultimate goal of developing new anticancer drugs.