Why are we interested in chemistry of natural products?
We are interested in chemistry of natural products because we think we have to learn many things from nature. At this purpose consider that humans have been making chemistry scientifically for about 250 years, of which about 160 of organic chemistry. Nature instead have been making chemistry since its naissance; in particular organic chemistry have been "existing" for more than a billion years in many levels, from the simplest molecules to the life! Life is probably the greatest result of chemistry in every time, so difficult to realize in essence that we can manipulate her but we can't reproduce her il laboratory. Between the simplest organic molecules, that we have been knowing for centuries, and the Life there is an exterminate number of molecules product in nature with extraordinary biological activity. They are used in pharmaceutical production and in research, many of them are not yet been descovered and a great number can't yet be synthetized in laboratory. If you consider that the most insignificant herb growing at a side of the road can synthetize molecules unknown but perhaps usefuls or molecules of so great complexty to have not yet been synthetized in laboratory we think it's easy to understand our interest in chemistry of natural products. Many of this compounds are toxins or psychotropic substances (see respective pages).
Why are we interested in chemistry of natural products?
