Essential Role of Natural Products In Drug Discovery and Chemical Biology

Abstract

Natural products (NPs) derived from plants, microbes, and marine organisms remain a vital source of structural diversity for drug discovery, particularly in treating cancer and infectious diseases. While historically significant, challenges in screening, isolation, and optimization previously caused a decline in their use by the pharmaceutical industry. Modern advances in computational chemistry, artificial intelligence, and genomics are revitalizing this field, facilitating the screening of new molecules and the optimization of lead structures.