Natural Products: The Future of Natural Products in Drug Discovery: Roundtable
Genomes to Natural Products
Barbara Gerratana, NIH, Bethesda, MD
Optimized through evolutionary genetic processes for their biological activity, natural products serve as defensive and signaling molecules, and impart defining chemical features that help make organisms biologically distinct. Approximately 75% of antibacterial and anticancer drugs are natural products or inspired by natural products. NIH has a long-standing interest in supporting research in natural products. I will present publicly available data of the current funding by NIH for different research priorities in natural products research. I will highlight a new funding opportunity for applications that utilize the wealth of genomic and metagenomic sequencing data available, and recent advances in synthetic biology for the purpose of developing new high-throughput and broadly applicable approaches to natural products discovery.