Natural Products: Therapeutic Properties and Beyond II

• Autor(a) principal: Duarte, Ana Paula
• Data de Publicação: 2022
• Outros Autores: Luís, Ângelo, Gallardo, Eugenia
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.6/12547
• topic: Natural Products

Historically, natural products have contributed to drug discovery as a source of active molecules due to their great diversity and structural complexity. Thus, they have contributed to the development of drugs for applications in different therapeutic areas. In recent decades, there has been a paradigm shift in drug discovery strategies that has allowed for identifying new natural products that exhibit activities on therapeutic targets. Newman and Cragg studied the origin of 1330 new drugs that had been approved between 1981 and 2010 and found that 64% of them were somewhat related to natural compounds [1]. In a recent review by these same authors, it was noted that, within all of the drugs newly approved by the Food and Drug Administration between January 1981 and September 2019, compounds derived from natural products ranked second [2]. Besides the importance of the discovery of new molecules based on natural compounds, the concern today is focused on the therapeutic potential of secondary metabolites classified as drugs of abuse, such as derivatives of cannabis [3] and psilocybin [4], or even on the use of plants used ancestrally in medicine as well [5,6]. On the other hand, with the development of computational techniques, a decision has been made to study the possibilities of analyzing the pharmacological potential of natural products or their derivatives and converting these molecules into low toxicity active products. However, apart from the use of naturally occurring compounds in the field of health, they have been studied and are increasingly used in solutions, for instance in the agrochemical and food industries. After the success of the Special Issue “Natural Products: Therapeutic Properties and Beyond I”, this second edition aims to categorize the state of the art concerning scientific research on natural products, including their applications as compounds with added value to human health. This issue intends to be used as a text for academia or as a reference tool for researchers, particularly for those working in the fields of medicinal chemistry, toxicology, phytochemistry, and natural product chemistry, and for health and industry professionals.