1 Pharmaceutical-biological research
Central themes of our research interests are small molecules of biogenic origin and their biological and pharmacological actions.
Natural products have been so far the most prolific source for drugs, and they continue to provide templates and inspiration for the development of new drug substances.
Penicillin G
Penicillin G
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Antibiotic; inhibits murein synthesis in bacterial cell wall
Rapamycin
Rapamycin G
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Immune suppressant; inhibits synthesis of IL-2 and other growth promoting lymphokines
Galanthamine Galanthamine
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Alzheimer drug; acetylcholine esterase inhibitor and cholinergic
Artemisinin Artemisinin
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Antimalarial; lead for clinically used semisynthetic derivatives
Taxol Taxol
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Anticancer agent; stabilizes microtubules
Natural products are invaluable tools for fundamental biomedical research. They have been decisive for numerous important discoveries in cell biology and pharmacology.
Forskolin
Forskolin
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activator of adenylate cyclase
Nicotine
prototypical agonist of nicotinic ACh receptors
Phorbol
potent activator of protein kinase C
Staurosporine
Staurosporine
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prototypical protein kinase inhibitor
Aconitine Aconitine
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activator of tetrodotoxin-sensitive sodium channels
Over 200'000 secondary metabolites have been identified to date. This number, however, represents only a fraction of the biosynthetic capabilities of living organisms.
The enormous structural diversity of natural products is the result of co-evolutive selection processes. One can reasonably assume that most of the secondary metabolites synthesized by an organism have some purpose for the producer.
Natural products have evolved to interact with proteins of target organisms, typically lower organisms such as bacteria, fungi, insects etc. Given the highly conserved nature of numerous proteins and protein domains, structurally homologous proteins exist in humans even though their function may sometimes have changed. It is not accidental that natural products interact with human proteins and, therefore, represent a unique pool of molecules with drug-like properties.
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