Abstract In order to develop potent and selective anticancer agents, a series of novel artemisinin derivatives bearing urea moiety 1a–n were facilely synthesized herein and screened for their activities in vitro against ten human tumor cell lines (HeLa, MCF-7, U937, K562, HL60, HCT116, HepG2, A549, A375-S2, and HT1080). The pharmacological results indicated that some compounds showed excellent activity against cancer cell lines and ...