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Natural products as probes in pharmaceutical research

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  • Published:
Journal of Industrial Microbiology & Biotechnology

Abstract

From the start of the pharmaceutical research natural products played a key role in drug discovery and development. Over time many discoveries of fundamental new biology were triggered by the unique biological activity of natural products. Unprecedented chemical structures, novel chemotypes, often pave the way to investigate new biology and to explore new pathways and targets. This review summarizes the recent results in the area with a focus on research done in the laboratories of Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research. We aim to put the technological advances in target identification techniques in the context to the current revival of phenotypic screening and the increasingly complex biological questions related to drug discovery.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the management of our departments Developmental and Molecular Pathways and Center for Proteomic Chemistry for continued support and the freedom to explore novel biological space. Special thanks to the head of the Natural Products Unit Frank Petersen for careful reading of the manuscript and helpful suggestions.

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  1. Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research, Novartis Campus, 4056, Basel, Switzerland

    Esther K. Schmitt, D. Hoepfner & P. Krastel

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  1. Esther K. Schmitt
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  2. D. Hoepfner
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  3. P. Krastel
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Correspondence to Esther K. Schmitt.

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Special Issue: Natural Product Discovery and Development in the Genomic Era. Dedicated to Professor Satoshi Ōmura for his numerous contributions to the field of natural products.

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Schmitt, E.K., Hoepfner, D. & Krastel, P. Natural products as probes in pharmaceutical research. J Ind Microbiol Biotechnol 43, 249–260 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10295-015-1691-9

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