Biodiversity

The continuing quest for new drugs and agrochemicals has seen researchers looking to the natural world for potential products. Plants and micro-organisms have long been investigated as sources of new lead compounds, but the scope of this book has been widened to include substances derived from marine organisms. Advances in genetic engineering, high throughput screening and structure elucidation have also opened up further avenues for exploration. Competitive pressure from the field of combinatorial chemistry has expedited new approaches to natural product analysis and stimulated debate on the industrial utilization of natural products. This text reviews and discusses aspects of modern natural products research. The central theme of many articles is the sustainable use of global biodiversity. Microbial, plant and marine products are presented as the sources of new drugs, including antifungal products, antibiotics, anticancer agents and animal health products. There is also coverage of the biosynthesis of polyketides and the chemical synthesis of natural products and their derivatives.