title: Cancer wars: natural products strike back.
abstract: Natural products have historically been a mainstay source of anticancer drugs, but in the 90's they fell out of favor in pharmaceutical companies with the emergence of targeted therapies, which rely on antibodies or small synthetic molecules identified by high throughput screening. Although targeted therapies greatly improved the treatment of a few cancers, the benefit has remained disappointing for many solid tumors, which revitalized the interest in natural products. With the approval of rapamycin in 2007, 12 novel natural product derivatives have been brought to market. The present review describes the discovery and development of these new anticancer drugs and highlights the peculiarities of natural product and new trends in this exciting field of drug discovery.
authors.affiliation: Therapeutic Innovation Laboratory, UMR7200, CNRS/University of Strasbourg Illkirch, France ; AAREC Filia Research Clichy, France.
authors.forename: Christine
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Basmadjian
authors.affiliation: Therapeutic Innovation Laboratory, UMR7200, CNRS/University of Strasbourg Illkirch, France ; AAREC Filia Research Clichy, France.
authors.forename: Qian
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.affiliation: L.C.I.M.N Laboratory, Department of Process Engineering, Faculty of Technology, University Ferhat Abbas Sétif, Algeria.
authors.forename: Embarek
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Bentouhami
authors.affiliation: Therapeutic Innovation Laboratory, UMR7200, CNRS/University of Strasbourg Illkirch, France ; L.C.I.M.N Laboratory, Department of Process Engineering, Faculty of Technology, University Ferhat Abbas Sétif, Algeria.
authors.forename: Amel
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Djehal
authors.affiliation: Biotechnology and Cell Signaling Laboratory, UMR 7242, CNRS/ University of Strasbourg Illkirch, France.
authors.forename: Canan G
authors.initials: CG
authors.lastname: Nebigil
authors.affiliation: Department of Physiology and Biophysics, State University of New York Stony Brook, NY, USA.
authors.forename: Roger A
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: Johnson
authors.affiliation: AAREC Filia Research Clichy, France.
authors.forename: Maria
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Serova
authors.affiliation: AAREC Filia Research Clichy, France.
authors.forename: Armand
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: de Gramont
authors.affiliation: AAREC Filia Research Clichy, France ; Department of Medical Oncology, Beaujon University Hospital, INSERM U728/AP-HP Clichy, France.
authors.forename: Sandrine
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Faivre
authors.affiliation: AAREC Filia Research Clichy, France ; Department of Medical Oncology, Beaujon University Hospital, INSERM U728/AP-HP Clichy, France.
authors.forename: Eric
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Raymond
authors.affiliation: Therapeutic Innovation Laboratory, UMR7200, CNRS/University of Strasbourg Illkirch, France.
authors.forename: Laurent G
authors.initials: LG
authors.lastname: Désaubry
keywords: cancer; drug discovery; molecular targets; natural products; pharmacognosy; privileged structures