title: Lessons from natural molecules.
abstract: Natural products have inspired chemists and physicians for millennia. Their rich structural diversity and complexity has prompted synthetic chemists to produce them in the laboratory, often with therapeutic applications in mind, and many drugs used today are natural products or natural-product derivatives. Recent years have seen considerable advances in our understanding of natural-product biosynthesis. Coupled with improvements in approaches for natural-product isolation, characterization and synthesis, these could be opening the door to a new era in the investigation of natural products in academia and industry.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA. jon_clardy@hms.harvard.edu
authors.forename: Jon
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Clardy
authors.forename: Christopher
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Walsh
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001685:Biological Factors / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000302:isolation & purification / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000494:pharmacology; D004345:Drug Industry; D006801:Humans; D010084:Oxidation-Reduction; D004364:Pharmaceutical Preparations / Q000138:chemical synthesis / Q000737:chemistry; D013329:Structure-Activity Relationship
chemical_list: D001685:Biological Factors; D004364:Pharmaceutical Preparations