Recent Advances in Natural Product‐Derived Photosensitizers for Anticancer Photodynamic Therapy: A Review

ABSTRACT Cancer remains one of the most formidable diseases confronting global healthcare systems. Photodynamic therapy (PDT) has emerged as a promising comprehensive anticancer strategy, distinguished by its exceptional selectivity, minimal invasiveness, and lack of drug resistance mechanisms. As the core component of PDT, photosensitizers (PSs) play a crucial role in determining therapeutic outcomes. With the ongoing advancement of PDT and the development of PSs, it is imperative to identify and characterize natural compounds with photosensitive properties from natural products and modify them to address the limitations of traditional PSs in clinical applications and enhance the efficacy of PDT. This paper elucidates the application of PDT in cancer treatment and systematically reviews the advantages of the following classes of natural product‐derived PSs: Coumarins from umbelliferae , rutaceae , and leguminosae ; Chlorophylls from higher plants, algae, and some bacteria; Curcumins from Zingiberaceae and Umbelliferae ; Alkaloids from Solanaceae , Leguminosae , Apocynaceae , and fungi; Anthraquinones from Rubiaceae , Rhamnaceae , and Liliaceae ; Hematoporphyrins from hemoglobin. We analyze critical challenges in photosensitizer development and their therapeutic applications, discuss the implementation of artificial intelligence for rational photosensitizer design, and propose potential future directions for next‐generation PSs.