Inhibition of the signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3) signaling pathway has been considered a novel therapeutic strategy to treat human cancers that harbor aberrantly-active STAT3. In this study, nearly 204,000 compounds in Specs database were screened by virtual screening, and samples of top 100 compounds identified as candidate small-molecule inhibitors of STAT3 were evaluated by STAT3-dependent luciferase ...