Drug Discovery from Natural Products

Abstract

This book offers an integrated review of the most recent trends in natural products drug discovery and key lead candidates that are outstanding for their chemistry and biology as a starting point in novel drug development. The authors focus on different trends that are and will continue to be impacting multiples stages of modern drug discovery from NPs that have not been included in other works. This is complemented with a series of case studies from leading experts from industry and academia on key molecules and derivatives that have been chosen for their novelty in chemistry, biology and clinical applications. The book intends to reflect the current confluence of different disciplines in chemical biology and synthetic chemistry supported by a more profound knowledge of systems biology that ensures the concurrency and synergisms of expertise from different research fields that impact in the discovery of novel molecules. In the first section the chapters reflect recent approaches to exploit the biosynthetic potential of microbial resources (including genome mining, metagenomic and epigenetic approaches), as well as biosynthetic chemistry tools to respond to product supply and novel screening alternatives that have lead to the discovery of novel chemistry. The second part reviews, in the form of case studies, some examples of bioactive molecules in the important therapeutic areas of antiinfectives, oncology and antiparasitics.