Natural Products Libraries PDF

**Examples of Natural Products** Opium alkaloids is the oldest pharmaceutical coming from opium plants and was used by the Chinese 5,000 years ago Aspirin was discovered in 1899 by Felix Hoffman from willow bark and was made synthetically from dyes (Pseudo)ephedrine had its first recorded use in...

**Examples of Natural Products** Opium alkaloids is the oldest pharmaceutical coming from opium plants and was used by the Chinese 5,000 years ago Aspirin was discovered in 1899 by Felix Hoffman from willow bark and was made synthetically from dyes (Pseudo)ephedrine had its first recorded use in 2700 BC and is used to improve circulation as well as to suppress coughs - Penicillin was found growing on a mouldy cantaloupe and is used to treat bacterial infections - Taxol was found in the bark of Pacific yew and is used to treat breast and ovarian cancers Vincristine/Vinblastine is native to flowers in Madagascar and is used as treatment for cancer - Podophyllotoxin was discovered in the roots of the mayapple tree and is used to treat cancer - Reserpine is a plant whose roots were used to treat schizophrenia - Cyclosporin was isolated from soil in Norway and is an immunosuppressant, making transplant surgeries possible - Prialt (Ciconotide) comes from the venom of a snail, used to kill fish in seconds, and is nowadays used as an immunosuppressant as well - - Yondelis (Trabectedin) comes from sea squirts and is used as cancer treatment (specifically soft tissue sarcoma) - Halaven (Eribulin Mesylate) comes from sponge and is used as a strong growth inhibition to cancer - **Using Natural Products in Industry** Natural products are also known as specialised metabolites and are substances that have no known role in the internal economy of the organism is comes from - - - Natural products interact with the same receptors most often used for pharmaceutical activity, and are therefore sometimes referred to as privileged structures - - Natural products are also desirable targets because they are more rigid due to fewer rotatable bonds, this allows them to possess less entropic activity There are a few problems with using natural products for hit discovery in general - - - - - - - Natural products are still used nowadays because of how expensive clinical trials are, therefore if you start with something that is already working it is less expensive overtime **Practical Aspects** The biodiscovery pipeline poses challenges in every step - - - - - - - - The loss of biological diversity due to the abusement of this pipeline lead to the Convention of Biological Diversity in 1992 which laid out the ethical and commercial considerations/guidelines for the first half of this pipeline process  There are several stages required to achieve a pure compound - - -