Medicines from Nature
Medicines from Nature: Biodiversity, Natural Products and Drug Discovery
Nature has been one of humanity's most important sources of medicines. Plants, fungi, bacteria, marine organisms, and animals produce an extraordinary range of molecules that evolved for purposes such as defense, communication, competition, predation, and survival. Many of these molecules interact strongly with biological systems, making them valuable starting points for medicines.
Natural products have contributed directly or indirectly to drugs used against infections, cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, malaria, pain, inflammatory disease, neurological disorders, and many other conditions. Some natural compounds became medicines with relatively modest modification, while others served as chemical templates that scientists altered to improve effectiveness, safety, stability, or production.
The relationship between nature and medicine is therefore broader than the traditional idea of herbal remedies. Modern natural-product research combines biology, chemistry, pharmacology, genomics, artificial intelligence, biotechnology, synthetic biology, and large-scale computational screening.
Nature as a Pharmaceutical Library
Living organisms manufacture enormous numbers of specialized chemicals. Their structural diversity can be difficult to reproduce using conventional collections of laboratory-synthesized molecules.
Plants produce alkaloids, terpenoids, flavonoids, phenolics, and numerous other compounds. Fungi and bacteria manufacture antibiotics, immunosuppressants, cholesterol-lowering molecules, and other biologically active substances. Marine organisms produce unusual compounds shaped by life in highly distinctive environments, while animal venoms contain peptides and proteins capable of acting with remarkable precision on receptors, enzymes, ion channels, blood-clotting pathways, and other biological systems.
Natural-product drug discovery searches this biological diversity for molecules that can either become medicines themselves or provide molecular starting points for new pharmaceutical compounds.
This process is known in part through the field of pharmacognosy, which studies biologically active substances obtained from natural sources.
Traditional Medicine and Ethnobotany
Human societies investigated medicinal organisms thousands of years before the development of modern pharmaceutical laboratories. Traditional medical systems accumulated knowledge about plants, fungi, minerals, and other natural materials through generations of observation and experience.
Ethnobotany and ethnopharmacology examine this relationship between human cultures and medicinal organisms. Traditional knowledge can help researchers identify species that deserve scientific investigation rather than screening organisms entirely at random.
Several important medicines have histories connected with traditional plant use.
Willow preparations are historically associated with the development of salicylates and eventually aspirin. Cinchona bark provided quinine, one of the earliest effective treatments for malaria. Investigation of Artemisia annua and traditional Chinese medical literature contributed to the discovery of artemisinin. Foxglove became the source of digitalis compounds including digoxin, while compounds associated with Colchicum, Ephedra, opium poppies, and other medicinal plants became important parts of pharmacology.
Traditional knowledge does not automatically establish that a treatment is effective or safe. Rather, it can provide observations and leads that can subsequently be investigated using chemical analysis, controlled experiments, pharmacology, toxicology, and clinical trials.
Recognition of traditional knowledge also raises questions about research ethics, benefit sharing, intellectual property, conservation, and the rights of Indigenous and local communities whose knowledge may guide pharmaceutical research.
Famous Medicines Derived from Plants
Some of the clearest examples of nature's contribution to medicine come from plants.
Aspirin has historical roots in the medicinal use of willow and the chemistry of salicylates.
Quinine came from cinchona bark and became a historically important treatment for malaria. Natural-product research later contributed another major antimalarial drug, artemisinin, derived from Artemisia annua.
Digoxin traces its history to foxglove and demonstrates how a traditional botanical medicine could eventually become a standardized pharmaceutical with carefully controlled dosing.
Morphine and codeine originated from opium poppies and became foundational compounds in the history of pain treatment and pharmaceutical chemistry.
Atropine, derived historically from deadly nightshade and related plants, became an important medicine and pharmacological tool.
Colchicine, associated with Colchicum species, represents another ancient plant compound that remains medically useful.
Galantamine, associated with snowdrops and related plants, became a medicine used in the treatment of Alzheimer's disease.
The history of metformin also illustrates a more indirect connection. Research related to compounds found in Galega officinalis contributed to the chemical history that eventually produced modern biguanide diabetes medicines.
These examples demonstrate several different pathways from nature to medicine. Sometimes a natural molecule itself becomes a drug. In other cases, it provides the chemical idea from which safer or more useful pharmaceuticals are developed.
Fungi, Bacteria and the Antibiotic Revolution
Microorganisms have been among the most productive sources of pharmaceuticals.
Penicillin emerged from observations of antibacterial activity produced by Penicillium fungi. Its subsequent purification, development, and mass production transformed the treatment of bacterial infections.
Research on soil microorganisms led to streptomycin and helped establish Streptomyces and related microorganisms as exceptionally important sources of antibiotics.
Microbial natural products have contributed far more than antibacterial drugs. They have also supplied cholesterol-lowering medicines, immunosuppressants, anticancer compounds, antiparasitic drugs, and important research tools.
Statins illustrate this relationship. Research on fungal metabolites led to compounds capable of inhibiting cholesterol synthesis and ultimately helped create one of the major classes of cardiovascular medicines.
Rapamycin originated from a microorganism found in a soil sample collected on Rapa Nui. It subsequently became important in immunosuppression and biological research.
Cyclosporine originated from a fungal metabolite and transformed organ transplantation by helping suppress immune rejection.
Tacrolimus, originally identified through microbial fermentation research, became another major transplant medicine.
Ivermectin developed from avermectins produced by a soil microorganism and became an important antiparasitic medicine.
These discoveries demonstrate that soil, fungi, bacteria, and other microbial ecosystems can function as enormous reservoirs of biologically active chemistry.
Nature and Cancer Medicines
Cancer treatment provides some of the most prominent examples of natural-product drug discovery.
Paclitaxel, originally discovered in the Pacific yew, became an important cancer medicine. Its development also illustrated one of the central challenges of natural-product research: discovering a useful compound does not necessarily mean that enough of it can be collected sustainably.
Natural chemistry has also contributed vinca alkaloids, camptothecin-derived drugs, podophyllotoxin derivatives, microbial compounds, and marine-derived cancer medicines.
Camptothecin, originally isolated from Camptotheca acuminata, became the foundation for important anticancer drugs targeting topoisomerases.
Podophyllotoxin provided a chemical starting point for medicines including etoposide and teniposide.
Marine research contributed compounds and molecular templates that ultimately led to medicines such as cytarabine, trabectedin, and eribulin.
The importance of natural products in cancer therapy illustrates a recurring feature of pharmaceutical discovery: evolution has already produced molecules capable of interacting powerfully with fundamental cellular processes. Researchers can identify those molecules and then adapt their chemistry for medical purposes.
Medicines from Oceans, Venoms and Animals
Drug discovery is not limited to plants and microorganisms.
Marine biodiversity represents an enormous chemical resource. Sponges, algae, marine microorganisms, mollusks, cyanobacteria, and other ocean organisms produce compounds unlike many found in terrestrial ecosystems.
Research on marine natural products has contributed medicines and drug candidates in cancer, pain, infectious disease, and other areas.
Animal venoms provide another striking example.
Cone-snail venom contains highly specialized peptides that target components of nervous systems. Research on these compounds contributed to ziconotide, a non-opioid medicine used for severe pain.
The Gila monster supplied another unusual pharmaceutical lead. Research on exendin-4 contributed to the development of exenatide for diabetes.
Snake-venom research helped scientists understand molecules affecting blood pressure and blood clotting. Venom-derived research contributed to the development of pharmaceutical ideas behind drugs including captopril and antiplatelet medicines.
Medicinal leeches produce hirudin, a powerful natural inhibitor of thrombin. Research eventually made it possible to produce hirudin-related compounds using biotechnology instead of relying entirely on harvesting animals.
Venoms are dangerous precisely because their molecules interact strongly with biological targets. Pharmaceutical research attempts to separate useful molecular properties from the toxicity associated with the original venom.
Natural Products Against Infectious and Parasitic Diseases
Natural products have played a particularly important role in infectious-disease medicine.
The antibiotic era was founded substantially on compounds discovered in microorganisms. Increasing antimicrobial resistance has renewed interest in searching plants, fungi, soil organisms, marine microorganisms, and other biological sources for new antimicrobial structures.
Natural compounds are also being investigated against tuberculosis, fungal infections, viruses, and parasitic diseases.
Malaria provides historically important examples through both quinine and artemisinin.
Researchers are examining natural compounds as possible starting points for medicines against neglected tropical diseases including leishmaniasis, schistosomiasis, sleeping sickness, and other parasitic illnesses.
Plants contain alkaloids, terpenoids, flavonoids, quinones, phenolics, and other compounds with experimentally observed antimicrobial or antiparasitic activity. Marine organisms and microorganisms also provide potential drug leads.
However, biological activity in laboratory experiments is not equivalent to an approved medicine. Many promising natural compounds remain experimental and require extensive testing for effectiveness, toxicity, dosing, pharmacokinetics, manufacturing, and clinical benefit.
Genome Mining, Artificial Intelligence and a New Era of Discovery
Natural-product drug discovery is increasingly becoming a high-technology science.
Genome sequencing has revealed that microorganisms contain many more biosynthetic pathways than scientists previously recognized. Some of these pathways remain silent under normal laboratory conditions, meaning an organism may possess the genetic machinery to manufacture compounds that researchers have never observed.
Genome mining allows scientists to search DNA for these biosynthetic gene clusters and predict where undiscovered chemistry may exist.
Metagenomics expands the search further by allowing researchers to examine genetic material from entire environmental microbial communities, including organisms that are difficult or impossible to culture using conventional laboratory methods.
Artificial intelligence and computational screening can connect chemical structures, biological activity, genomic information, molecular targets, and natural-product databases. These techniques can help prioritize molecules for laboratory investigation from an otherwise enormous chemical search space.
Synthetic biology and metabolic engineering provide another step. Once researchers understand how an organism produces a useful compound, they may be able to transfer or redesign the relevant biological pathways so that microorganisms or cultured cells manufacture the compound more efficiently.
The result is a major change in the meaning of "medicine from nature." Scientists no longer have to depend exclusively on extracting small quantities of a molecule from wild organisms. Nature can provide the original molecular design while biotechnology provides a sustainable method of production.
Sustainable Production and Conservation
Natural-product medicine creates an important connection between human health and biodiversity.
A species may possess chemical pathways found nowhere else. If that organism disappears before it is studied, potentially useful compounds can disappear with it.
The pharmaceutical importance of biodiversity therefore provides an additional reason to conserve plants, fungi, microorganisms, marine habitats, and entire ecosystems.
At the same time, pharmaceutical discovery can itself create conservation problems if valuable organisms are harvested faster than they reproduce.
Scientists have developed several approaches to reduce this pressure. These include cultivation of medicinal plants, microbial fermentation, plant tissue culture, cell suspension cultures, semisynthesis, total chemical synthesis, metabolic engineering, and synthetic biology.
Plant cell cultures and bioreactors can sometimes produce valuable metabolites without repeatedly harvesting entire wild plants. Endophytic fungi may provide alternative biological sources of compounds associated with plants. Genetically engineered microorganisms can potentially manufacture natural molecules or modified versions at industrial scale.
Paclitaxel and other complex natural products helped demonstrate why sustainable supply must be considered from the beginning of drug development.
Conservation and biotechnology are therefore not necessarily competing approaches. Biotechnology can help society benefit from natural chemistry while reducing pressure on vulnerable species and habitats.
Natural Compounds Are Starting Points, Not Automatic Medicines
The medical importance of natural products should not be confused with the claim that everything natural is safe or therapeutic.
Nature produces some of the world's most powerful toxins as well as some of its most useful medicines.
A natural molecule may be toxic, unstable, poorly absorbed, rapidly eliminated, difficult to manufacture, or effective only at concentrations that cannot safely be achieved in humans.
Modern drug development therefore commonly modifies natural molecules. Medicinal chemists may alter structures to improve potency, selectivity, solubility, stability, absorption, distribution, or safety.
This process has produced an important continuum:
natural organism → biological observation → compound isolation → chemical characterization → mechanism research → drug lead → molecular modification → preclinical testing → clinical trials → pharmaceutical medicine.
Many substances discussed in natural-product research remain at the early stages of this process. Laboratory or animal evidence should therefore be distinguished from established clinical treatments.
The Future of Medicines from Nature
Modern technology is making biological diversity searchable in ways that previous generations of scientists could not have imagined.
Genome sequencing can reveal hidden biosynthetic pathways. Metagenomics can investigate microorganisms that cannot easily be cultivated. Artificial intelligence can analyze huge chemical and biological databases. Synthetic biology can reconstruct natural pathways in laboratory organisms. Advanced analytical chemistry can identify molecules present in extremely small quantities.
Researchers can increasingly combine these technologies with ethnobotanical knowledge and ecological information.
Rather than making natural products obsolete, advances in biotechnology may be creating a new period of natural-product discovery.
The major challenge is no longer simply finding interesting organisms. Scientists must determine which molecules are medically useful, establish how they work, evaluate their safety, develop sustainable methods of production, and determine through rigorous clinical research whether they actually improve human health.
Conclusion
The history of medicine demonstrates that biodiversity is also a vast repository of chemistry.
Willow and aspirin, cinchona and quinine, Artemisia and artemisinin, foxglove and digoxin, poppies and morphine, fungi and statins, Penicillium and penicillin, soil microorganisms and streptomycin, avermectins and ivermectin, the Pacific yew and paclitaxel, cone snails and ziconotide, the Gila monster and exenatide, and snake venoms and cardiovascular medicines all illustrate different ways in which biological discoveries can become medical innovations.
Yet the most important medicines from nature may not have been discovered yet.
Plants, fungi, bacteria, marine organisms, and animals contain enormous chemical diversity that remains incompletely explored. Genome mining suggests that even well-studied microorganisms possess hidden biosynthetic pathways capable of producing unknown compounds.
Preserving biodiversity therefore protects more than species and ecosystems. It also preserves biological information, evolutionary innovations, and chemical possibilities that could contribute to future medicine.
The emerging combination of biodiversity research, traditional knowledge, genomics, artificial intelligence, synthetic biology, sustainable cultivation, and modern pharmacology may make the next generation of medicines from nature easier to discover without requiring the destruction of the natural systems from which those discoveries originate.
Medicines from Nature: Foundations and Natural-Product Drug Discovery
1. Rethinking Natural Product Discovery
| Rodney Lacret | Journal of Natural Products | 2026-02-19
Drug discovery from nature can be strengthened by combining pharmacognosy, chemical ecology, genomics, laboratory experiments, computational analysis, and sustainability considerations.
2. Natural Products as a Pipeline for Next-Generation Neurodegenerative Drugs
| Various authors | PubMed | 2026
Researchers are investigating natural compounds capable of influencing multiple interconnected processes involved in Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases.
3. Natural Product-Derived Compounds in Clinical Trials and Drug Approvals
A review of natural-product-related medicines approved since 2014 and compounds progressing through clinical development demonstrates their continuing pharmaceutical importance.
4. Marine Natural Products as Drug Leads: A Recent Overview of Bioactivity and Mechanistic Insights
| Junyi Xue and Yuanyuan Lu | Chemistry & Biodiversity | 2025
Marine organisms generate unusually complex chemicals with anticancer, anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial, and other activities that make the oceans promising reservoirs for drug discovery.
5. An Approach to Drug Discovery via Ethnopharmacology and Sustainable Agriculture
| Various authors | PubMed | 2025
Combining traditional medicinal knowledge with sustainable cultivation can help identify useful bioactive compounds while reducing pressure on wild medicinal-plant populations.
6. The Latest Advances with Natural Products in Drug Discovery and Opportunities for the Future: A 2025 Update
| Shaowen Xie et al. | Expert Opinion on Drug Discovery | 2025
New screening methods, artificial intelligence, synthetic biology, and molecular engineering are helping overcome longstanding obstacles in natural-product pharmaceutical research.
7. Natural Products in Neurodegenerative Diseases: Recent Advances and Future Outlook
| Various authors | PubMed | 2025
Plant, fungal, and marine compounds are being investigated for neuroprotective effects involving inflammation, oxidative stress, mitochondria, and neuronal signaling.
8. Natural Products as Drug Leads: Exploring Their Potential in Drug Discovery and Development
| Various authors | PubMed | 2024
Analytical chemistry, artificial intelligence, biosynthetic engineering, and traditional knowledge are increasingly being combined to transform natural compounds into pharmaceutical leads.
9. Natural Product Databases for Drug Discovery: Features and Applications
| Various authors | Pharmaceutical Science Advances | 2024
Digital databases containing chemical structures, biological sources, activities, and biosynthetic information allow researchers to screen enormous collections of natural molecules computationally.
10. Potential of Natural Products in Inflammation: Biological Activities, Structure-Activity Relationships, and Mechanistic Targets
| Various authors | PubMed | 2024
Hundreds of natural compounds and derivatives have been investigated for their ability to affect inflammatory pathways and provide templates for new medicines.
11. Artificial Intelligence for Natural Product Drug Discovery
| Michael W. Mullowney et al. | Nature Reviews Drug Discovery | 2023-09-11
Artificial intelligence can help connect genomic, chemical, and biological information to identify promising drug candidates among the enormous molecular diversity produced by nature.
12. Recent Advances in Anti-Inflammatory Active Components and Action Mechanisms of Natural Medicines
| Various authors | PubMed | 2023
Natural compounds can influence NF-kB, MAPK, JAK-STAT, and other signaling pathways involved in inflammatory disease.
13. Plant-Derived Natural Products for Drug Discovery: Current Approaches and Prospects
| Noohi Nasim, Inavolu Sriram Sandeep and Sujata Mohanty | Nucleus | 2022-10-18
Modern analytical, computational, and biotechnology methods are expanding scientists' ability to identify and develop biologically active compounds from plants.
14. Mining Genomes to Illuminate the Specialized Chemistry of Life
| Marnix H. Medema, Tristan de Rond and Bradley S. Moore | Nature Reviews Genetics | 2021-06-03
Genome mining reveals that plants, fungi, bacteria, animals, and other organisms possess far more chemical biosynthetic capacity than traditional screening methods had suggested.
15. Natural Products in Drug Discovery: Advances and Opportunities
| Atanas G. Atanasov et al. | Nature Reviews Drug Discovery | 2021-01-28
Natural products and compounds inspired by them remain important sources of medicines, while genomics, metabolomics, synthetic biology, and improved screening are opening new opportunities for discovery.
16. Antifungal Natural Products
| Stephanie C. Heard, Guangwei Wu and Jaclyn M. Winter | Current Opinion in Biotechnology | 2021
Natural compounds have provided important antifungal medicines and may yield new chemical structures capable of overcoming increasingly drug-resistant fungal pathogens.
17. Anti-Inflammatory Natural Products as Potential Therapeutic Agents of Rheumatoid Arthritis
| Various authors | Phytomedicine | 2021
A systematic review identified plant-derived compounds, particularly flavonoids, that alter inflammatory signaling in experimental rheumatoid-arthritis models.
18. Diabetes and Plant-Derived Natural Products: From Ethnopharmacological Approaches to Modern Drug Discovery
| Various authors | Journal of Ethnopharmacology | 2020
Traditional medicinal plants contain numerous compounds affecting glucose metabolism, but most require considerably more clinical testing before becoming established diabetes medicines.
19. Natural Products as a Foundation for Drug Discovery
| John A. Beutler | Current Protocols in Pharmacology | 2019-09
Natural-product collections offer distinctive chemical structures for biological screening and remain useful starting points for identifying new pharmacological agents.
20. Anti-Inflammatory Properties of Plant-Derived Natural Products: A Systematic Review
| Various authors | PubMed | 2019
Systematic evaluation of plant compounds shows that many natural molecules exhibit measurable anti-inflammatory activity, although evidence quality varies considerably.
21. Anti-Inflammatory Activity of Natural Products
| Various authors | PubMed | 2016
Medicinal plants contain chemically diverse compounds capable of influencing inflammatory processes, providing potential starting points for pharmaceutical development.
22. Current Perspectives in Drug Discovery Against Tuberculosis from Natural Products
| Various authors | PubMed | 2016
Growing resistance to tuberculosis medicines has renewed interest in plant and microbial metabolites as possible sources of new antitubercular drug structures.
23. Updates on Managing Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus with Natural Products
| Various authors | PubMed | 2016
Researchers continue investigating natural compounds from foods, medicinal plants, spices, and mushrooms as potential starting points for antidiabetic medicines.
24. A New Golden Age of Natural Products Drug Discovery
| Ben Shen | Cell | 2015-12-03
Advances in genome sequencing, biosynthetic pathway analysis, and microbial engineering are making previously inaccessible natural compounds available for investigation.
25. Discovery and Resupply of Pharmacologically Active Plant-Derived Natural Products
| Atanas G. Atanasov et al. | Biotechnology Advances | 2015-08-15
Plant compounds can yield valuable medicines, but successful development often requires solving problems involving identification, cultivation, synthesis, and sustainable supply.
26. The Re-emergence of Natural Products for Drug Discovery in the Genomics Era
Genomics, improved analytical chemistry, and new screening technologies have renewed interest in organisms as sources of pharmacologically useful molecules.
27. Pharmacognosy: Science of Natural Products in Drug Discovery
| Ilkay Erdogan Orhan | BioImpacts | 2014
Pharmacognosy studies medicines and biologically active compounds obtained from plants, microorganisms, fungi, and animals and remains an important foundation of natural-product drug discovery.
28. Natural Products: A Continuing Source of Novel Drug Leads
| Gordon M. Cragg and David J. Newman | Biochimica et Biophysica Acta | 2013-06
Nature has supplied numerous drug structures and continues to provide chemical diversity that is difficult to reproduce through conventional synthetic libraries alone.
29. Natural Products Derived from Plants as a Source of Drugs
| Ciddi Veeresham | Journal of Advanced Pharmaceutical Technology & Research | 2012-10
Plants have supplied important antibacterial, anticancer, cardiovascular, neurological, and other pharmaceutical compounds and remain major reservoirs of unexplored chemistry.
30. A Historical Overview of Natural Products in Drug Discovery
| Daniel A. Dias, Sylvia Urban and Ute Roessner | Metabolites | 2012-04-16
The history of pharmacy contains numerous examples of plants, microorganisms, and other organisms providing compounds that became important modern drugs.
31. Modern Natural Products Drug Discovery and Its Relevance to Biodiversity Conservation
| David G. I. Kingston | Journal of Natural Products | 2011-03-25
Protecting biological diversity preserves organisms and chemical pathways that may contain compounds capable of becoming future medicines.
32. Natural Products and Drug Candidates for Parkinson's Disease
| Various authors | PubMed | 2010
Plant compounds have been investigated for neuroprotective, antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and neurotransmitter-related effects relevant to Parkinson's disease.
33. Recent Developments in Anti-Inflammatory Natural Products
| Various authors | PubMed | 2009
Alkaloids, terpenoids, polyphenols, steroids, flavonoids, and marine compounds have supplied numerous anti-inflammatory drug leads.
34. Natural Products and Anti-Inflammatory Activity
| Gaofeng Yuan et al. | Asia Pacific Journal of Clinical Nutrition | 2006
Curcumin, flavonoids, bromelain, marine metabolites, and numerous other natural substances have been studied for their effects on inflammatory processes.
35. The Evolving Role of Natural Products in Drug Discovery
| Frank E. Koehn and Guy T. Carter | Nature Reviews Drug Discovery | 2005-03
Natural compounds provide structurally diverse molecules that have repeatedly supplied drug leads, although pharmaceutical discovery strategies have changed substantially over time.
Traditional Medicine, Ethnobotany, and Biodiversity
36. State of the World's Plants and Fungi 2026
| Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew | Kew | 2026-06-16
Global plant and fungal diversity represents an enormous biological resource, while extinction can eliminate species and chemical compounds before their potential benefits are understood.
37. Modern Drug Discovery Using Ethnobotany
| Daniel Domingo-Fernández et al. | iScience | 2023-08-25
Large-scale analysis of traditional plant uses shows patterns connecting plant relationships, chemistry, and therapeutic applications that may guide future drug discovery.
38. From Traditional Ethnopharmacology to Modern Natural Drug Discovery
| Stergios Pirintsos et al. | Molecules | 2022-06-24
Ethnopharmacology increasingly combines traditional knowledge with chemical analysis, computational screening, molecular modeling, and experimental validation.
39. Ethnobotany and the Role of Plant Natural Products in Antibiotic Drug Discovery
| Gina Porras et al. | Chemical Reviews | 2020-11-09
Medicinal plants contain chemically diverse antibacterial compounds that may provide starting points for addressing antibiotic-resistant infections.
40. Pharmaceutical Resource Discovery from Traditional Medicinal Plants
| Da-Cheng Hao and Pei-Gen Xiao | Chinese Herbal Medicines | 2020-03-12
Phylogenetics and genomics can help scientists identify relatives of medicinal plants likely to produce similar or previously unknown pharmacologically active compounds.
41. Medicinal Plants of the Maasai of Kenya: A Review
| Jedidah Nankaya, Nathan Gichuki, Catherine Lukhoba and Henrik Balslev | Plants | 2019-12-27
Researchers documented hundreds of plant species used in Maasai traditional medicine in Kenya while highlighting the importance of conserving both plants and associated knowledge.
42. Biodiversity Conservation and Drug Discovery: The Suriname and Madagascar Experiences
| Shugeng Cao and David G. I. Kingston | Pharmaceutical Biology | 2009-08-01
Biodiversity research projects in Suriname and Madagascar illustrate attempts to combine natural-product discovery with conservation, training, and local economic development.
43. The Value of Plants Used in Traditional Medicine for Drug Discovery
| Daniel S. Fabricant and Norman R. Farnsworth | Environmental Health Perspectives | 2001-03
Traditional medicinal knowledge can help researchers prioritize plants for investigation, and many established plant-derived drugs have historical links to ethnomedical uses.
44. Traditional Medicine, Biodiversity and Indigenous Knowledges
| World Health Organization | WHO Global Traditional Medicine Centre | n.d.
Indigenous and traditional knowledge about biodiversity has important connections with health, medicinal plants, sustainable resource management, and research ethics.
45. Biodiversity and Health
| World Health Organization | WHO | n.d.
Biodiversity supports human health directly and indirectly, including by providing medicinal resources and biological compounds used in pharmaceutical research.
Famous Plant-Derived Medicines
46. A Comprehensive Review on Unveiling the Journey of Digoxin
| Rahul Khandelwal et al. | Cureus | 2024-03-23
Digoxin traces its medical ancestry to foxglove, illustrating the transformation of a traditional botanical remedy into a precisely dosed cardiovascular medicine.
47. Therapeutic and Medicinal Effects of Snowdrop in Alzheimer's Disease
| Marzieh Babashpour-Asl et al. | Journal of Education and Health Promotion | 2023-04-28
Snowdrop species contain alkaloids including galantamine, illustrating the pharmaceutical significance of specialized chemicals produced by plants.
48. What Historical Records Teach Us About the Discovery of Quinine
| Louis H. Miller et al. | American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene | 2022-11-21
Historical evidence surrounding cinchona and quinine shows how Indigenous botanical knowledge, colonial networks, chemistry, and medicine became intertwined.
49. Natural Products from Plants and Algae for Treatment of Alzheimer's Disease
| Jana Klose, Carola Griehl, Steffen Roßner and Stephan Schilling | Biomolecules | 2022-05-12
Plant- and algae-derived molecules are being investigated for neurological effects, although experimental activity must be distinguished from clinically established therapies.
50. Medicinal Plants in the Search for New Antimalarials
| Isabela P. Ceravolo et al. | Frontiers in Pharmacology | 2021-09-22
Ethnopharmacological studies can identify medicinal plants containing compounds worth testing as possible antimalarial drug leads.
51. The Past, Present and Future of Anti-Malarial Medicines
| Edwin G. Tse, Marat Korsik and Matthew H. Todd | Malaria Journal | 2019-03-22
Antimalarial drug development has repeatedly drawn on natural compounds while adapting their structures and combinations to improve treatment and overcome parasite resistance.
52. Antiplasmodial Natural Products: An Update
| N. Tajuddeen and F. R. Van Heerden | Malaria Journal | 2019
Plants, microorganisms, and marine organisms continue to yield compounds active against malaria parasites, providing possible starting points for future medicines.
53. Problematic Malaria Prophylaxis with Quinine: A Historical Review
| G. Dennis Shanks | American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene | 2016-08-03
Quinine, originally obtained from cinchona bark, became one of the earliest effective medicines against malaria and played a major role in tropical medicine.
54. Digoxin: Its Role in Contemporary Medicine
| Marcelle A. Stucky and Zachary D. Goldberger | Postgraduate Medical Journal | 2015-08-11
More than two centuries after foxglove entered scientific medicine, digoxin remains an example of a plant compound with continuing clinical applications.
55. Colchicine: Update on Mechanisms of Action and Therapeutic Uses
Colchicine, originating from plants such as Colchicum autumnale, is an ancient natural compound that remains important in modern treatment of inflammatory conditions.
56. Tu Youyou: Artemisinin and Traditional Chinese Medicine
| Tu Youyou | NobelPrize.org | 2015
Tu Youyou describes how investigation of traditional Chinese medical literature and Artemisia annua contributed to the discovery and development of artemisinin for malaria.
57. The 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
| Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet | NobelPrize.org | 2015
The Nobel Prize recognized discoveries leading to ivermectin and artemisinin-based therapies, two major examples of medicines originating from natural organisms.
58. Nature as a Source of Acetylcholinesterase Inhibitors
| Ilkay Erdogan Orhan | Current Neuropharmacology | 2013-07
Compounds including galantamine, physostigmine, and other natural molecules helped establish acetylcholinesterase inhibition as an important pharmacological strategy.
59. Antimalarial Natural Products: A Review
| Faraz Mojab | Avicenna Journal of Phytomedicine | 2012
Numerous plant-derived alkaloids, terpenes, flavonoids, quinones, and other compounds have been investigated for activity against malaria parasites.
60. Quinine, an Old Anti-Malarial Drug in a Modern World
| Jane Achan et al. | Malaria Journal | 2011-05-24
Quinine's long history demonstrates how a plant-derived compound can remain medically important even after newer generations of drugs are developed.
61. Natural Products as Starting Points for Future Anti-Malarial Therapies
| Timothy N. C. Wells | Malaria Journal | 2011-03-15
The discoveries of quinine and artemisinin demonstrate why plants and other organisms remain promising places to search for new antimalarial compounds.
62. The History of Ephedra (Ma-Huang)
| M. R. Lee | Journal of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh | 2011-03
Traditional Chinese use of Ephedra eventually led to isolation of ephedrine, which became important in the development of modern pharmacology and respiratory medicines.
63. The Historical Analysis of Aspirin Discovery and Its Relation to the Willow Tree
| J. G. Mahdi et al. | Cell Proliferation | 2006-04
The history of aspirin connects traditional use of willow preparations with salicylates and the eventual development of acetylsalicylic acid as a standardized pharmaceutical drug.
64. Galanthamine from Snowdrop: Development of a Modern Drug from Local Caucasian Knowledge
| Michael Heinrich and Hooi Lee Teoh | Journal of Ethnopharmacology | 2004-06
Galantamine's development links traditional knowledge involving snowdrops and related plants with modern pharmacological treatment for Alzheimer's disease.
65. Digoxin 1785–1985: Two Hundred Years of Digitalis
| O. L. Wade | Journal of Clinical and Hospital Pharmacy | 1986-02
William Withering's systematic study of foxglove helped establish digitalis therapy and became an important milestone in evidence-based investigation of medicinal plants.
Natural Medicines for Metabolic Disease, Pain, and the Nervous System
66. Statins—From Fungi to Pharmacy
| Anna Sadowska et al. | International Journal of Molecular Sciences | 2023-12-29
The discovery of cholesterol-lowering compounds in fungi led to natural and semisynthetic statins and demonstrates the pharmaceutical importance of fungal metabolism.
67. Morphine Alkaloids: History, Biology, and Synthesis
Morphine and codeine from the opium poppy became foundational analgesic compounds and have inspired extensive pharmaceutical chemistry and synthetic research.
68. Pain Therapeutics from Cone Snail Venoms
Cone-snail venoms contain highly specialized peptides that can reveal drug targets and provide leads for developing new non-opioid pain medicines.
69. Metformin: Historical Overview
| Clifford J. Bailey | Diabetologia | 2017-08-03
Metformin's history can be traced to Galega officinalis, whose guanidine-related chemistry helped inspire the development of biguanide medicines for diabetes.
70. Natural Products to Counteract Cardiovascular and Metabolic Disorders
| Birgit Waltenberger et al. | Molecules | 2016-06-22
Natural compounds have contributed to cardiovascular and metabolic drug discovery, including the historical development of statins and biguanide medicines.
71. Exploitation of Aspergillus terreus for the Production of Natural Statins
| Mishal Subhan, Rani Faryal and Ian Macreadie | Journal of Fungi | 2016-04-30
Aspergillus terreus became an important industrial source of natural statins and provides an example of producing medicines through controlled microbial fermentation.
72. Development of Exenatide from the Venom of the Gila Monster
| Brian L. Furman | Toxicon | 2012-03-15
Discovery of exendin-4 in Gila monster venom contributed to development of exenatide, showing how animal toxins can provide templates for useful medicines.
73. Statins: Past and Present
| Rachel Hajar | Heart Views | 2011-07
The development of statins began with searches for fungal compounds capable of blocking cholesterol biosynthesis and ultimately transformed cardiovascular prevention.
74. A Historical Perspective on the Discovery of Statins
| Akira Endo | Proceedings of the Japan Academy, Series B | 2010
Screening fungal metabolites led Akira Endo to compactin and helped establish the natural-product origins of one of modern medicine's major cholesterol-lowering drug classes.
75. Atropa belladonna, Deadly Nightshade
| M. R. Lee | Journal of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh | 2007-03
Isolation of atropine from deadly nightshade transformed a dangerous plant chemical into a valuable pharmacological tool and clinically useful medicine.
76. Ziconotide: Pharmacology and Use in the Treatment of Pain
| Joseph G. McGivern | Neuropsychiatric Disease and Treatment | 2007-02
Ziconotide is a synthetic version of a peptide from cone-snail venom and demonstrates how natural toxins can inspire non-opioid approaches to severe pain.
77. Current Status of the Anticoagulant Hirudin
| J. H. Sohn et al. | Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology | 2001-12
Biotechnology made it possible to produce the leech-derived thrombin inhibitor hirudin without depending on extraction from large numbers of animals.
78. From Cocaine to Ropivacaine: The History of Local Anesthetic Drugs
| Y. A. Ruetsch, T. Böni and A. Borgeat | Current Topics in Medicinal Chemistry | 2001-08
Discovery of cocaine's anesthetic properties led directly to efforts to create safer synthetic local anesthetics with similar nerve-blocking effects.
79. The History of Leeching and Hirudin
| W. S. Fields | Haemostasis | 1991
Investigation of medicinal-leech saliva led to identification of hirudin, a highly specific natural anticoagulant that later inspired recombinant medicines.
80. A Review of the History, Actions, and Legitimate Uses of Cocaine
| P. F. Brain and G. A. Coward | Journal of Substance Abuse | 1989
Coca leaves and isolated cocaine illustrate both the medical potential and substantial risks that can accompany powerful natural pharmacological compounds.
Medicines from Fungi, Bacteria, Microbes, Genome Mining, and Biotechnology
81. Endophytic Streptomyces: An Underexplored Source for Novel Natural Drug Discovery
| Various authors | PubMed | 2024
Streptomyces living inside plants may generate antibiotics, antifungals, anticancer compounds, and other natural molecules overlooked by conventional screening.
82. Natural Product Discovery in Soil Actinomycetes
| Jana K. Schniete and Lorena T. Fernández-Martínez | Current Opinion in Microbiology | 2024
Studying ecological interactions and environmental signals may help scientists activate silent biosynthetic pathways in soil bacteria.
83. Actinomycetes—The Repertoire of Diverse Bioactive Chemical Molecules
| Various authors | PubMed | 2024
Terrestrial and marine actinomycetes produce antibiotics and compounds with anticancer, immunomodulatory, and other biologically useful properties.
84. Strategies on Biosynthesis and Production of Bioactive Compounds in Medicinal Plants
| Various authors | PubMed | 2024
Genetics, metabolic engineering, synthetic biology, and omics technologies can increase sustainable production of compounds such as artemisinin, paclitaxel, and medicinal alkaloids.
85. Fungal Drug Discovery for Chronic Disease
| Thomas A. K. Prescott et al. | Biomolecules | 2023-06-14
Fungi have produced medically important antibiotics, statins, immunosuppressants, and other compounds and remain underexplored sources for chronic-disease drug discovery.
86. Natural Product Ligands of FKBP12: FK506, Rapamycin, and Beyond
| Angela Rivera and Joseph Heitman | PLOS Pathogens | 2023-01-12
Tacrolimus and rapamycin demonstrate how microbial natural products can reveal fundamental cell biology while simultaneously becoming major medicines.
87. Griseofulvin: An Updated Overview of Old and Current Knowledge
| Parisa Aris et al. | Molecules | 2022-10-18
Griseofulvin, originally isolated from Penicillium, is a classic example of a fungal natural product developed into an antifungal medicine.
88. A Treasure from a Barren Island: The Discovery of Rapamycin
| Gerren Hobby, Rebecca Clark and Alexander Woywodt | Clinical Kidney Journal | 2022-04-29
A soil microorganism collected on Rapa Nui produced rapamycin, which evolved from an antimicrobial discovery into an important immunosuppressive and research compound.
89. Endophytic Fungi: Emerging Prospects in Natural Product Drug Discovery
| Pragya Tiwari and Hanhong Bae | Microorganisms | 2022-02-04
Endophytic fungi represent reservoirs of secondary metabolites and may provide scalable biological systems for discovering or producing medicinal compounds.
90. Streptomyces: The Biofactory of Secondary Metabolites
| Various authors | PubMed | 2022
Streptomyces bacteria have supplied antibiotics and other medicines and retain an enormous reservoir of unexplored biosynthetic genes.
91. Fungal Endophytes as Sources of Plant-Derived Bioactive Compounds
| Archana Singh et al. | Microorganisms | 2021-01-19
Fungi living within plants can produce diverse pharmacologically interesting molecules and may offer alternative ways to obtain valuable compounds without harvesting entire plants.
92. Production of Bioactive Plant Secondary Metabolites Through In Vitro Technologies
| Various authors | PubMed | 2021
Cell cultures, hairy roots, metabolic engineering, and microbial production may provide sustainable alternatives to harvesting medicinal plants from nature.
93. Renewed Interests in the Discovery of Bioactive Actinomycete Metabolites
| Various authors | PubMed | 2021
Multi-omics, improved cultivation, genome mining, synthetic biology, and high-throughput screening are renewing searches for medicines from actinomycetes.
94. Actinobacteria in Natural Products Research: Progress and Prospects
| Various authors | PubMed | 2021
Actinobacteria remain major biological factories for antibiotics, anticancer compounds, immunosuppressants, and other pharmaceutical natural products.
95. Streptomyces from Traditional Medicine: Sources of New Innovations in Antibiotic Discovery
| Gerry A. Quinn et al. | Journal of Medical Microbiology | 2020-08
Streptomyces associated with traditional medicinal plants and environments may provide previously overlooked sources of antimicrobial compounds.
96. Antibiotic Discovery: Where Have We Come From, Where Do We Go?
| Bernardo Ribeiro da Cunha, Luís P. Fonseca and Cecília R. C. Calado | Antibiotics | 2019-04-24
The history of antibiotics is deeply connected to natural microbial products, while modern resistance makes renewed exploration of nature increasingly important.
97. Natural Product Drug Discovery in the Genomic Era
| Various authors | PubMed | 2019
Genome sequencing revealed that many microorganisms contain far more natural-product biosynthetic pathways than laboratory cultures normally express.
98. Exploration and Genome Mining of Natural Products from Marine Streptomyces
| Various authors | PubMed | 2019
Marine Streptomyces genomes contain numerous silent or poorly expressed biosynthetic pathways that may encode undiscovered medicinal compounds.
99. Fungal Secondary Metabolism: Regulation, Function and Drug Discovery
| Nancy P. Keller | Nature Reviews Microbiology | 2018-12-10
Fungal genomes contain numerous secondary-metabolite pathways whose products have potential applications in medicine, agriculture, and biotechnology.
100. Discovering Antibiotics Through Soil Metagenomics
| Katharine H. Wrighton | Nature Reviews Drug Discovery | 2018-03-16
Metagenomic methods can recover biosynthetic information from soil microorganisms that cannot readily be cultured, greatly expanding the searchable chemical universe.
101. Streptomyces Species: Ideal Chassis for Natural Product Discovery and Overproduction
| Various authors | Metabolic Engineering | 2018
Genetic engineering can turn Streptomyces into biological factories for discovering, modifying, and producing natural medicines.
102. In Vitro Plant Tissue Culture: Production of Biologically Active Compounds
| Various authors | PubMed | 2018
Tissue culture can provide controlled year-round production of medicinal plant metabolites while reducing dependence on wild collection and climate conditions.
103. Genome Mining for Bioactive Compounds: The Streptomyces Paradigm
| Various authors | PubMed | 2018
Silent biosynthetic gene clusters suggest that known Streptomyces chemistry represents only a portion of these bacteria's pharmaceutical potential.
104. The Antifungal Pipeline: A Reality Check
| John R. Perfect | Nature Reviews Drug Discovery | 2017-05-12
Natural products and derivatives remain relevant to antifungal discovery as medicine confronts a limited arsenal against serious fungal infections.
105. The Discovery of Penicillin—New Insights After More Than 75 Years of Clinical Use
| Robert Gaynes | Emerging Infectious Diseases | 2017-05
Fleming's observation of antibacterial activity from Penicillium ultimately led to purification, mass production, and one of the most transformative medicines in history.
106. Ivermectin: A Multifaceted Natural-Product Drug
| Andy Crump | Journal of Antibiotics | 2017-02-15
Ivermectin arose from avermectins produced by a soil microorganism discovered in Japan and became one of the world's most important antiparasitic medicines.
107. Genomics-Driven Natural Product Discovery in Actinomycetes
| Various authors | PubMed | 2017
Genomic analysis can identify biosynthetic pathways in actinomycetes before researchers know which chemical compounds those organisms actually produce.
108. New Dimensions of Research on Actinomycetes
| Polpass Arul Jose and Bhavanath Jha | Frontiers in Microbiology | 2016-08-19
Actinomycetes from unusual terrestrial and marine environments may contain biosynthetic pathways capable of producing new antibiotics and other pharmaceuticals.
109. Antibiotic Drug Discovery
Genome mining and new cultivation strategies are helping researchers revisit microorganisms as sources of antibiotics against resistant pathogens.
110. Alexander Fleming: Discoverer of Penicillin
| Siang Yong Tan and Yvonne Tatsumura | Singapore Medical Journal | 2015-07
Fleming's penicillin discovery illustrates how careful observation of interactions between microorganisms can reveal compounds with extraordinary therapeutic value.
111. Selman A. Waksman, Winner of the 1952 Nobel Prize
| H. Boyd Woodruff | Applied and Environmental Microbiology | 2014-01
Systematic investigation of soil microorganisms helped Waksman's group discover streptomycin and established soil microbes as extraordinarily productive sources of antibiotics.
112. Medicinal Plant Cell Suspension Cultures: Pharmaceutical Applications
| Various authors | PubMed | 2014
Culturing medicinal-plant cells in bioreactors may provide renewable supplies of valuable natural chemicals without repeatedly harvesting whole plants.
113. Current Approaches Toward Production of Secondary Plant Metabolites
| Various authors | PubMed | 2012
Cell suspension cultures and bioreactors offer methods for producing medicinal compounds including taxanes, alkaloids, and other valuable plant metabolites.
114. Microbial Drug Discovery: 80 Years of Progress
| Arnold L. Demain and Sergio Sanchez | Journal of Antibiotics | 2009-01
Microorganisms have supplied antibiotics, cholesterol-lowering medicines, immunosuppressants, anticancer compounds, and many other biologically active molecules.
115. Pharmaceutically Active Natural Product Synthesis and Supply via Plant Cell Culture Technology
| Various authors | PubMed | 2008
Plant cell culture offers an alternative manufacturing strategy when medicinal compounds are scarce in nature or too chemically complex for economical synthesis.
116. Bioactive Natural Products from Marine Cyanobacteria for Drug Discovery
| Various authors | PubMed | 2007
Marine cyanobacteria produce chemically unusual peptides and alkaloids, several of which have attracted attention as anticancer and antimicrobial leads.
117. Development and Application of Medicinal Plant Tissue Cultures for Production of Drugs
| Various authors | PubMed | 2006
Tissue-culture biotechnology allows rapid propagation of medicinal plants while creating controlled systems for producing pharmaceutical metabolites.
118. History of the Discovery of Cyclosporin
| Jean F. Borel | Wiener Klinische Wochenschrift | 2002-06-28
Cyclosporine emerged from investigation of a fungal metabolite and transformed organ transplantation by providing powerful suppression of immune rejection.
119. Plant Cell and Tissue Culture: Alternatives for Metabolite Production
| F. DiCosmo and M. Misawa | Biotechnology Advances | 1995
Plant cultures were recognized decades ago as renewable biological factories for medicinal compounds difficult to manufacture by conventional chemistry.
120. Discovery of FK-506, a Novel Immunosuppressant from Streptomyces tsukubaensis
| T. Goto et al. | Transplantation Proceedings | 1987-10
Screening microbial fermentation products produced FK-506, later known as tacrolimus, which became a major immunosuppressive medicine for transplantation.
Nature and Cancer Medicines
121. Camptothecin: A Key Building Block in the Design of Anti-Tumor Agents
| Bowen Liu and Lei Yao | Future Medicinal Chemistry | 2025-02
Camptothecin, originally isolated from Camptotheca acuminata, provided the chemical foundation for important topoisomerase-targeting anticancer drugs.
122. From Plant to Cancer Drug: Lessons Learned from the Discovery of Taxol
| Nadja B. Cech and Nicholas H. Oberlies | Natural Product Reports | 2023-07-19
Paclitaxel's development from the Pacific yew illustrates both the extraordinary promise and the practical supply challenges associated with plant-derived medicines.
123. Discovery and Development of Botanical Natural Products for Ovarian Cancer
| Brittney K. Mize et al. | Natural Product Reports | 2023-07-19
The histories of taxanes and camptothecins provide models for assessing newer plant-derived compounds being investigated as potential ovarian-cancer therapies.
124. Natural Products in Cancer Therapy: Past, Present and Future
| Min Huang, Jin-Jian Lu and Jian Ding | Natural Products and Bioprospecting | 2021-01-03
Plant, microbial, and marine compounds have supplied major anticancer drug classes and continue to provide structurally distinctive candidates for research.
125. Marine Anticancer Agents: An Overview
| Marilia Barreca et al. | Marine Drugs | 2020-12-04
Marine organisms produce diverse metabolites that have yielded approved cancer medicines and numerous experimental drug candidates.
126. Plant-Derived Natural Products in Cancer Research
| Wamidh H. Talib et al. | Molecules | 2020-11-14
Plant compounds under investigation for cancer demonstrate both the chemical diversity of botanical sources and the extensive validation required before clinical use.
127. Natural Products as a Vital Source for Cancer Chemotherapeutic and Chemopreventive Agents
| Gordon M. Cragg and John M. Pezzuto | Medical Principles and Practice | 2015-12-17
Taxanes, vinca alkaloids, camptothecins, microbial compounds, and marine products demonstrate the exceptionally large contribution of natural chemistry to cancer therapy.
128. Recent Advances in Antineoplastic Agents Derived from Natural Products
| Matthew Trendowski | Drugs | 2015-11
Natural toxins and metabolites from numerous organisms have provided cancer drugs with mechanisms that pharmaceutical chemists have subsequently refined and adapted.
129. Eribulin in Cancer Treatment
| Umang Swami, Umang Shah and Sanjay Goel | Marine Drugs | 2015-08-07
Eribulin was developed from research on halichondrin B, a compound discovered in marine sponges, showing how complex marine chemistry can inspire practical medicines.
130. A Story of Discovery: Natural Compound Helps Treat Breast and Ovarian Cancers
| National Cancer Institute | National Cancer Institute | 2015
NCI-supported research helped move paclitaxel from a compound detected in Pacific yew samples through testing, development, and widespread cancer treatment.
131. How Taxol/Paclitaxel Kills Cancer Cells
| Beth A. Weaver | Molecular Biology of the Cell | 2014-09-15
Paclitaxel acts on microtubules and became a major anticancer medicine after its discovery in the bark of the Pacific yew tree.
132. Nature as a Remarkable Chemist: Discovery and Development of Taxol
| Mansukh C. Wani and Susan Band Horwitz | Anti-Cancer Drugs | 2014-05
Researchers involved in paclitaxel's discovery describe the long pathway from isolating a novel yew-tree compound to establishing an important cancer medicine.
133. Potential of Plant-Derived Natural Products in Leukemia and Lymphoma
| David M. Lucas et al. | Current Drug Targets | 2010-07
Plant-derived compounds including vinca alkaloids and podophyllotoxin derivatives demonstrate how natural molecules have contributed to blood-cancer treatment.
134. Tubulin-Interactive Natural Products as Anticancer Agents
| David G. I. Kingston | Journal of Natural Products | 2009-03-27
Several natural compounds interfere with microtubules, demonstrating how ecological chemicals from organisms can become powerful tools against cancer cells.
135. Natural Products in Cancer Chemotherapy: Past, Present and Future
| John Mann | Nature Reviews Cancer | 2002-02
Numerous cancer medicines originated as natural compounds or derivatives, demonstrating the continuing importance of biological diversity to oncology.
136. Production of Podophyllotoxin from Podophyllum hexandrum
| A. Giri and M. Lakshmi Narasu | Cytotechnology | 2000-10
Podophyllotoxin from plants became the structural starting point for semisynthetic anticancer medicines including etoposide and teniposide.
Medicines from Oceans, Venoms, Peptides, and Animal Sources
137. Bee Venom in Pharmacology: From Pro-Inflammatory Trigger to Anti-Inflammatory Therapeutic Agent
| Various authors | PubMed | 2025
Compounds responsible for the inflammation caused by bee stings may under controlled conditions modulate immune pathways relevant to pharmaceutical research.
138. Therapeutic Bioactivity Exerted by Apis mellifera Bee Venom and Melittin
| Perihan Mutlu Erdoğan et al. | Molecules | 2025
A scoping review examines antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, and anticancer research involving bee venom and its principal peptide melittin.
139. Recent Progress on Formulations of Hirudin
| Various authors | PubMed | 2025
Researchers are developing new formulations and delivery systems to overcome the short half-life and bleeding risks associated with the natural leech anticoagulant hirudin.
140. Novel Drug Delivery Systems for Hirudin-Based Product Development
| Liqing Mo et al. | International Journal of Biological Macromolecules | 2025
Nanotechnology and other delivery strategies may make hirudin and hirudin-inspired anticoagulants easier to administer and control.
141. Exploring the Potential of Marine Natural Products in Drug Development
| Abid H. Banday et al. | Phytochemistry Letters | 2024-02
Marine microorganisms, algae, sponges, and other organisms inhabit unusual environments that have driven the evolution of chemically distinctive compounds with pharmaceutical potential.
142. Therapeutic Potential and Mechanisms of Bee Venom Therapy
| Maksymilian Stela et al. | Pharmaceuticals | 2024
Researchers are investigating purified bee-venom components for inflammatory, neurological, antimicrobial, and other applications while seeking safer delivery methods.
143. Bee Venom as a Promising Therapeutic Strategy in Central Nervous System Diseases
| Various authors | PubMed | 2024
Melittin and phospholipase A2 are being studied for effects on inflammation and oxidative stress in experimental neurological-disease models.
144. Harnessing the Power of Bee Venom for Therapeutic and Regenerative Medical Applications
| Kadry M. Sadek et al. | Frontiers in Pharmacology | 2024
Bee-venom research increasingly focuses on purified components, delivery technologies, safety, tissue repair, inflammation, and antimicrobial applications.
145. Spider-Venom Peptides: Structure, Bioactivity, Strategy, and Research Applications
| Various authors | PubMed | 2024
Spider venoms contain highly selective ion-channel peptides that are useful both as pharmacological research tools and as potential templates for medicines.
146. Immunomodulatory Effects of Halichondrin and Its Synthetic Analogs
| Various authors | PubMed | 2024
Halichondrin from marine sponges inspired eribulin and continues to illustrate how natural compounds can be transformed into more practical synthetic cancer medicines.
147. Venom-Derived Peptides for Breaking Through the Glass Ceiling of Drug Development
| Various authors | PubMed | 2024
Modern peptide chemistry and biotechnology are making it easier to turn highly specific venom toxins into stable and manufacturable therapeutic candidates.
148. Snake Venom Disintegrins Update
| Various authors | PubMed | 2023
Structural investigation of venom disintegrins continues to generate ideas for antiplatelet, anticancer, and integrin-targeting medicines.
149. Bee Venom: From Venom to Drug
| Various authors | PubMed | 2021
Individual molecules isolated from bee venom may be more useful pharmaceutical candidates than crude venom because their dose, targets, and toxicity can be controlled more precisely.
150. Bee Venom: An Updating Review of Its Bioactive Molecules and Health Applications
| Various authors | PubMed | 2020
Bee venom contains melittin, phospholipase A2, apamin, and other molecules with notable biological activities but also significant allergy and toxicity risks.
151. Snake Venom Three-Finger Toxins and Cardiovascular Drug Development
| Various authors | PubMed | 2020
Highly selective snake-venom molecules continue to reveal cardiovascular targets and may provide templates for future therapies.
152. How ACE Inhibitors Transformed the Renin-Angiotensin System
| Y. S. Bakhle | British Journal of Pharmacology | 2020
Discovery of an ACE-inhibiting peptide in Brazilian pit-viper venom ultimately helped produce captopril and transform cardiovascular medicine.
153. European Medicinal Leeches—New Roles in Modern Medicine
| Various authors | PubMed | 2020
Leech saliva contains hirudin, antistasins, eglins, saratins, and other bioactive proteins that provide possible pharmaceutical templates.
154. Marine-Derived Macrocyclic Alkaloids: Chemical and Biological Diversity
| Various authors | PubMed | 2020
Marine alkaloids include structurally unusual compounds with anticancer, antimicrobial, antimalarial, and other pharmacological activities.
155. Snake Venoms in Drug Discovery: Valuable Therapeutic Tools for Life Saving
| Tarek Mohamed Abd El-Aziz, Antonio Garcia Soares and James D. Stockand | Toxins | 2019-09-25
Snake venoms contain highly active peptides and proteins that have inspired medicines and drug leads, including compounds influencing blood pressure, clotting, and cardiovascular function.
156. Bee Venom: Overview of Main Compounds and Bioactivities for Therapeutic Interests
| Various authors | Molecules | 2019
Research on bee-venom peptides illustrates how biologically powerful toxins can become starting materials for pharmaceutical investigation.
157. Bee Venom Immunotherapy: Current Status and Future Directions
| Various authors | PubMed | 2019
Controlled venom immunotherapy is an established medical application of natural venom components used to reduce the risk of severe reactions to future bee stings.
158. Bee Updated: Current Knowledge on Bee Venom and Bee Envenoming Therapy
| Various authors | PubMed | 2019
Molecular study of bee toxins is supporting development of improved treatments and experimental recombinant antivenoms for severe bee envenomation.
159. Marine Drugs for Cancer: Biotechnological Innovations from the Oceans
| Paula Christine Jimenez, Diego Veras Wilke and Leticia Veras Costa-Lotufo | Clinics | 2018-08-20
Cytarabine, trabectedin, eribulin, and other compounds illustrate how marine organisms have contributed structures and ideas to modern cancer medicines.
160. Bee Venom Therapy: Potential Mechanisms and Therapeutic Applications
| Various authors | Toxicon | 2018
Bee venom influences inflammatory, immune, and neurological pathways, although adverse reactions make careful clinical evaluation essential.
161. Snake Venoms in Cancer Therapy: Past, Present and Future
| Various authors | PubMed | 2018
Snake venoms contain proteins and peptides capable of affecting blood vessels, cell adhesion, signaling, and other biological processes relevant to cancer research.
162. Spider Venomics: Implications for Drug Discovery
| Various authors | PubMed | 2015
Spider venom peptides frequently combine potency, stability, and molecular-target specificity, properties desirable in pharmaceutical lead compounds.
163. Marketed Marine Natural Products in the Pharmaceutical Industry
| Ana Martins, Helena Vieira, Helena Gaspar and Susana Santos | Marine Drugs | 2014-02-17
Successful marine-derived products show that ocean biodiversity can generate pharmaceuticals, although supply, cultivation, synthesis, and commercial development can be difficult.
164. Marine-Sourced Anti-Cancer and Cancer Pain Control Agents in Clinical Development
| Various authors | PubMed | 2014
Marine natural products have contributed cancer medicines including cytarabine, trabectedin, eribulin, and toxin-derived components used in targeted therapies.
165. From Snake Venom Toxins to Therapeutics—Cardiovascular Examples
| Various authors | PubMed | 2011
Captopril, eptifibatide, and tirofiban demonstrate how venom molecules can inspire antihypertensive and antiplatelet pharmaceuticals.
166. Functional Characteristics of Snake Venom Disintegrins
| Various authors | PubMed | 2005
Research on venom disintegrins helped inspire antiplatelet medicines and continues to reveal molecules that interact strongly with integrin receptors.
167. Marine Natural Products as Anticancer Drugs
| Various authors | PubMed | 2005
Halichondrin, dolastatin, trabectedin-related molecules, and other marine compounds demonstrate the exceptional chemical diversity available from ocean organisms.
168. Marine Organisms as a Source of New Anticancer Agents
| G. Schwartsmann et al. | The Lancet Oncology | 2001
Research on sponge nucleosides contributed to development of cytarabine, establishing marine organisms as important potential sources of cancer drugs.
Natural Medicines Against Infectious and Parasitic Disease
169. Antimicrobial Potential of Selected Medicinal Plants Against Drug-Resistant Pathogens
| Various authors | PubMed | 2026
A systematic review evaluated medicinal plants investigated against resistant bacteria and fungi and emphasized the need for standardized testing and compound isolation.
170. Medicinal Plants: A Promising Therapeutic Approach for Addressing Antimicrobial Resistance
| Various authors | PubMed | 2026
Plant flavonoids, alkaloids, and phenolics may kill microbes, disrupt biofilms, inhibit efflux pumps, or restore bacterial sensitivity to existing antibiotics.
171. Medicinal Plants, Bioactive Compounds and Multidrug-Resistant Microorganisms
| El-Saadony et al. | PubMed | 2025
Medicinal-plant compounds are being investigated as complementary sources of antimicrobial agents against increasingly resistant pathogens.
172. Recent Advances in Structural Modifications of Natural Products for Anti-Leishmaniasis Therapy
| Fu-Qun Sun et al. | RSC Medicinal Chemistry | 2025
Medicinal chemists are modifying natural antileishmanial molecules to improve potency, selectivity, pharmacokinetics, and safety.
173. Antiviral Activity of Natural Herbs and Their Isolated Bioactive Compounds
| Various authors | PubMed | 2023
Medicinal plants contain compounds capable of interfering experimentally with viral infection, although most proposed antiviral phytochemicals remain preclinical candidates.
174. Promising Natural Products for the Treatment of Cutaneous Leishmaniasis
| Various authors | PubMed | 2023
Animal studies have identified multiple natural compounds capable of reducing parasite burden or lesion size, although human clinical validation remains necessary.
175. Therapeutic Potential of Natural Products in the Treatment of Schistosomiasis
| Various authors | PubMed | 2023
Plant extracts, purified compounds, and essential oils provide experimental candidates for attacking schistosomes or disrupting their snail intermediate hosts.
176. Natural Products as Antifungal Agents Against Invasive Fungi
| Various authors | PubMed | 2023
Natural molecules with distinctive structures and mechanisms may provide leads against Candida, Aspergillus, Cryptococcus, and other invasive fungal pathogens.
177. Evaluation of Target-Specific Natural Compounds for Drug Discovery Against Leishmaniasis
| Various authors | PubMed | 2022
Researchers are matching natural molecules to parasite-specific enzymes and metabolic pathways in an effort to create more selective antileishmanial drugs.
178. Antiviral Potential of Selected Medicinal Herbs and Their Isolated Natural Products
| Various authors | PubMed | 2021
Traditional medicinal plants including ginger, licorice, garlic, turmeric, neem, and andrographis contain compounds being investigated for antiviral activity.
179. Antiviral Plant-Derived Natural Products to Combat RNA Viruses
| Various authors | PubMed | 2021
Plant-derived molecules can affect attachment, entry, replication, protein processing, and other stages of viral life cycles in experimental studies.
180. Current State and Future Perspective of Cardiovascular Medicines Derived from Natural Products
| Various authors | PubMed | 2020
Natural molecules have contributed substantially to cardiovascular pharmacology and continue to provide chemical scaffolds for new treatments.
181. Recent Developments in Natural Product-Based Drug Discovery for Tuberculosis
| Various authors | PubMed | 2016
Natural compounds and modified natural-product structures provide potential new chemical scaffolds for tackling drug-resistant tuberculosis.
182. The Role of Natural Products in Drug Discovery and Development Against Neglected Tropical Diseases
| Various authors | PubMed | 2016
Plants, microorganisms, and marine organisms contain drug leads relevant to sleeping sickness, leishmaniasis, schistosomiasis, filariasis, and other neglected diseases.
183. Natural Products as Leads in Schistosome Drug Discovery
| Various authors | PubMed | 2015
Natural compounds may supplement the search for alternatives to praziquantel as researchers prepare for the possibility of increasing schistosome drug resistance.
184. Natural Products with Antischistosomal Activity
| Josué de Moraes | Future Medicinal Chemistry | 2015
Plant terpenes, alkaloids, phenolics, peptides, and other natural molecules have shown activity against different developmental stages of schistosome parasites.
185. Current Approaches to Discover Marine Antileishmanial Natural Products
| Various authors | PubMed | 2011
Marine organisms supply alkaloids, terpenes, peptides, and other compounds that researchers have tested against Leishmania parasites.
186. Natural Products—Antifungal Agents Derived from Plants
| Various authors | PubMed | 2010
Plant alkaloids, tannins, terpenoids, flavonoids, and other metabolites contain structures with experimental antifungal activity.
187. Leishmaniasis: Drug Resistance and Natural Products
| Various authors | PubMed | 2008
Drug resistance and treatment toxicity have encouraged investigation of natural compounds as potential starting points for improved antileishmanial therapies.
188. Natural Products from Plants as Drug Candidates Against Leishmaniasis and Trypanosomiasis
| Various authors | PubMed | 2006
Alkaloids, terpenoids, flavonoids, and quinones from plants have been investigated as possible drug leads against kinetoplastid parasites.
Antibiotics, Alkaloids, Terpenoids, and Future Medicines
189. Flavonoids as Promising Drug Leads: Structural Diversity and Drug-Likeness Optimization
| Various authors | PubMed | 2026
Chemical modification of natural flavonoids can improve solubility, metabolic stability, potency, and other characteristics required for pharmaceutical development.
190. Natural Product–Antimicrobial Peptide Mimic Conjugates
| Various authors | PubMed | 2026
Researchers are combining natural-product chemical scaffolds with antimicrobial-peptide mimics to design molecules capable of attacking drug-resistant bacteria.
191. Natural Products in Antibiotic Development: Is the Success Story Over?
| Various authors | PubMed | 2022
Most antibiotic classes originated in natural products, and improved genomics and analytical tools may allow microorganisms to supply another generation of antibiotics.
192. Natural Terpenoids with Anti-Inflammatory Activities
| Various authors | PubMed | 2022
Terpenoids constitute one of nature's largest chemical families and contain numerous molecules capable of affecting inflammatory pathways.
193. Flavonoids: A Reservoir of Drugs from Nature
| Various authors | PubMed | 2022
Plant flavonoids possess structurally varied scaffolds that have prompted research into antimicrobial, antiviral, anti-inflammatory, metabolic, and anticancer medicines.
194. Alkaloids Used as Medicines: Structural Phytochemistry Meets Biodiversity
| Various authors | PubMed | 2021
Alkaloids provide many established medicines, while sustainable sourcing and the abundance of source species strongly influence whether new alkaloids can realistically become drugs.
195. Recent Progress of Antibacterial Natural Products: Future Antibiotic Candidates
| Various authors | PubMed | 2020
Hundreds of recently identified natural compounds with strong laboratory antibacterial activity demonstrate that useful antibiotic chemical diversity remains undiscovered.
196. Natural Products Discovery and Potential for New Antibiotics
| Olga Genilloud | Current Opinion in Microbiology | 2019
Improved microbial cultivation, chemical analysis, genomics, and screening methods are reopening natural-product pathways for antibiotic discovery.
197. The Impending Renaissance in Discovery and Development of Natural Products
| Various authors | PubMed | 2016
Metagenomics and metabolic engineering can help uncover natural-product genes and manufacture useful compounds that were previously difficult to obtain.
198. Something Old, Something New: Revisiting Natural Products in Antibiotic Drug Discovery
| Various authors | PubMed | 2014
Genome sequencing, bioinformatics, and improved analytical chemistry are helping researchers overcome the rediscovery problems that once discouraged natural-product antibiotic programs.
199. Antimicrobial Natural Products: An Update on Future Antibiotic Drug Candidates
| Various authors | PubMed | 2010
Hundreds of alkaloids, flavonoids, peptides, terpenes, macrolides, and other natural metabolites have been investigated as possible antimicrobial leads.
200. The Potential of Alkaloids in Drug Discovery
| G. A. Cordell, M. L. Quinn-Beattie and N. R. Farnsworth | Phytotherapy Research | 2001
Alkaloids are among nature's most pharmacologically productive chemical families and remain promising sources of new molecular structures for medicinal chemistry.
