Chalcones, one of the major classes of natural products with widespread occurrence in fruits, vegetables, spices and soy-based foodstuffs, have been reported to possess several biological activities (1,2 The newly synthesized compounds were tested for their antimicrobial activity and showed that 4-(N-ethyl-1H-indol-3-yl)-6-(p-chlorophenyl)-pyrimidine-2-amine (11b) was the most active of all the test compounds towards Candida albicans compared to the reference drug cycloheximide. Eighteen new compounds, namely pyrimidin-2(1H)-ones 5a,b-7a,b, pyrimidin-2(1H)--thiones 8a,b-10a,b and pyrimidin-2-amines 11a,b-13a,b derivatives, were tested for their in vitro antiproliferative activity against HEPG2, MCF7 and HCT-116 cancer cell lines. 4-(N-ethyl-1H-indol-3-yl)-6-(p-methoxyphenyl)-pyrimidin-2-amine (11a) was found to be highly active with IC 50 of 0.7 mmol L -1 .