The Role Of Natural Products In Drug Discovery (ernst Schering Foundation Symposium Proceedings)

Natural Products have been important sources of useful drugs from prehistoric times to the present. This book gives an overview about this field and provides important recent contributions to the discovery of new drugs generated by research on natural products. Total synthesis of natural products with interesting biological activities is paving the way for the preparation of new and improved analogs. The methods of combinatorial chemistry permit the selection of the best drug from a large number of candidates. Beyond synthesis and evaluation of organic molecules a number of new bioorganic methods are coming to the fore and will be discucced in this isue of the ERnst schering Research Foundation workshop proceedings. Front Matter....Pages I-XIII Synthesis of Immunomodulatory Marine Natural Products....Pages 1-24 The Pederin Family of Antitumor Agents: Structures, Synthesis and Biological Activity....Pages 25-56 Biotherapeutic Potential and Synthesis of Okadaic Acid....Pages 57-102 Total Synthesis of Marine Natural Products Driven by Novel Structure, Potent Biological Activity, and/or Synthetic Methodology....Pages 103-148 Total Synthesis of Antifungal Natural Products....Pages 149-181 Combinatorial Methods to Engineer Small Molecules for Functional Genomics....Pages 183-204 Natural Products in Drug Discovery....Pages 205-216 Tools for Drug Discovery: Natural Product-based Libraries....Pages 217-252 Genetic Selection as a Tool in Mechanistic Enzymology and Protein Design....Pages 253-268 The Biotechnological Exploitation of Medicinal Plants....Pages 269-285 Multifunctional Asymmetric Catalysis....Pages 287-314 New Directions in Immunopharmacotherapy....Pages 315-346 Back Matter....Pages 347-351 This title reviews and discusses important contributions to the discovery of drugs generated by research on natural products.