Question

Discuss the Underexplored opportunities for natural products in Drug discovery

Answer 1

Natural products hav been used from very ancient times for the treatment of many diseases and illnesses. The natural products used previously was now used as active compounds of many of the nowadays used drugs. The biodiversity of the world itself provide treatment for many diseases the only problem with the same is difficulty in terms of collection, conservation, knowledge about its clinical applications and activity. Diseases like malaria, cancer, diabetics etc are cured by many of the drugs which contain compounds from natural products.

The plant extracts of Ganoderma lucidum, Sophura flavescens are some that helps in curing bronchoconstriction and also maintains cytokine balance and helps in curing asthma.The roots stems and mucoidal material produced by plants have positive influence in treatment. Eventhough the natural products have very huge promising future in drug discovery the extraction, purification, characterization, knowledge of its structure and pharmacological applications are the barriers that yet need to be overcome.Newer discoveries associated with natural products include antimalarial drug artemisnin.Natural products are small molecules that exhibits druglike properties and can be utilised and metabolised within the body. Marine sources the least unexplored area of science will have very promising outcomes in the field of drugdiscovery. Some of the unexplored sources include

Marine snails -These are also called come snails which contains peptides that are rich in medical value.A peptide called Omega conotoxin is capable of blocking calcium channels in spinalcord and can get releived from pain.These snails are unexplored due to the difficulty associated with its collection and need to conseve it's populations.

Microalgae

These photosynthetic organisms have least investigation made on it.Secondary metabolites produced from it still remains as a leat known mystery.Many of the studies revealed that the active compounds produced by them possess anticancer and antifungal activity.

Mycobacterium

These are soil borne bacteria that is capable of forming fruiting bodies.The products isolated from these have many novel features which is still remains to be unknown.