?Discovery of Natural Products from Botanical Sources? DESCRIPTION This research is designed to explore anticancer agents from plants. A number of U.S. FDA new drug application (NDA) approvals are from unmodified natural products from plants, synthetic derivatives of plant natural products, and refined plant extracts marketed as a ?botanical drug product?. Plants are therefore a rich source of structurally distinct chemical classes with proven utility against disease. In fact, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 65% of the world?s population relies mainly on plant-derived traditional medicines for their primary care. A critical barrier to the progression of phytochemical research, however, is the vast number of plant species unexplored for novel bioactive compounds. This research proposal describes an approach to discover cytotoxic agents from plants.
The specific aims of the proposal are as follows: (1) To prioritize samples using cytotoxicity screening, 1H NMR and mass spectrometry to dereplicate known compounds. (2) To employ cytotoxicity-guided isolation towards the discovery of pure lead compounds. (3) To employ comprehensive NMR-based organic structure analysis in the elucidation of isolated lead compounds.
?Discovery of Natural Products from Botanical Sources? Plants are a rich source of structurally distinct chemical classes with proven utility against human disease. It is the overall goal of this research to discover novel chemicals from selected tropical plant species for evaluation as anticancer agents.
