Aim: Design and synthesis of pyrazole-based chemotherapeutic agents. Materials & methods: A series of novel diphenyl pyrazole-chalcone derivatives were synthesized and assessed for their cytotoxic activities against 14 cancer cell lines and their antimicrobial activities against MRSA and Escherichia coli along with their safety using HSF normal cell line. Results & conclusion: Majority of the compounds showed moderate-to-significant anticancer activity with selective high percentage inhibition (>80%) against HNO-97 while being nontoxic toward normal cells. Compounds 6b and 6d were the most potent congeners with IC50 of 10 and 10.56μM respectively. The synthesized compounds exhibited moderate to potent antimicrobial activities. Interestingly, compound 6d exhibited a minimum inhibitory concentrationof 15.7μg/ml against MRSA; and a minimum inhibitory concentrationof 7.8μg/ml versus E. coli.