Nature As Source of Drugs
Despite the rise of combinatorial chemistry as an integral part of lead discovery process, natural products still play a major role as starting material for drug discovery. A report was published in 2007, covering years 1981-2006 details the contribution of biologically occurring chemicals in drug development. According to this report, of the 974 small molecule new chemical entities, 63% were natural derived or semisynthetic derivatives of natural products. For certain therapy areas, such as antimicrobials, antineoplastics, antihypertensive and anti-inflammatory drugs, the numbers were higher. In many cases, these products have been used traditionally for many years.
Natural products may be useful as a source of novel chemical structures for modern techniques of development of antibacterial therapies.
Despite the implied potential, only a fraction of Earth’s living species has been tested for bioactivity.
Read more about this topic: Drug Discovery
Famous quotes containing the words nature, source and/or drugs:
“But oh! each visitation
Suspends what nature gave me any my birth,
My shaping spirit of Imagination.”
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)
“When the object is perceived as particular and unique and not merely the member of a family, when it appears independent of any general notion and detached from the sanity of a cause, isolated and inexplicable in the light of ignorance, then and only then may it be a source of enchantment.”
—Samuel Beckett (1906–1989)
“There is not much sense in suffering, since drugs can be given for pain, itching, and other discomforts. The belief has long died that suffering here on earth will be rewarded in heaven. Suffering has lost its meaning.”
—Elisabeth Kübler-Ross (b. 1926)