Natural Products in Modern Biology: Ancient Wisdom for Today’s Challenges 2.0

Dear Colleagues,

Already our earliest ancestors chewed on herbs to relieve pain or wrapped leaves around wounds to improve healing. During the past decades, while technological and scientific developments allowed researchers to better understand the biological effects of drugs on cells, organisms, and the human body, natural products played a key role in drug discovery. Natural compounds have evolved their function over millions of years making them often more efficient than synthetic substances if a specific biological activity is needed. The discovery of penicillin by Alexander Fleming or the discovery of streptomycin by Selman A. Waksman were not only history-changing milestones that greatly affect human life, but also heralded a ‘Golden Age’ of drug discovery based on natural compounds. Especially in the past few years there is a renewed interest in the use of natural products in (complementary) medicine and, more importantly, their role as a basis for drug development.  Innovative strategies in drug discovery are of great importance to meet today’s global health and environmental challenges including the rise of drug-resistant pathogens, the growing prevalence of diseases, but also crop failures and feeding mankind. Driven by recent developments, the interest in (historically used) natural products is growing again.

This Special Issue is the continuation of our 2020 Special Issue, “Natural Products in Modern Biology: Ancient Wisdom for Today’s Challenges” (https://www.mdpi.com/journal/biology/special_issues/NPIMBAWFTC). We welcome the submission of original research, short communications, and review manuscripts focusing on the biological effects of natural products, especially in environmental and therapy approaches (not limited to humans), but also on the specific technologies employed in their identification and targeting. This will help us to provide a realistic overview of this very exciting and interdisciplinary field of biological research.

Dr. Marcus Krüger
Dr. Peter Richter
Dr. Sebastian M. Strauch
Guest Editors

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• bioactive compounds
• natural remedies
• pharmaceutical biology
• traditional medicine
• pharmacognosy
• drug discovery
• antimicrobials
• cancer treatment
• immunomodulators
• plant protection