Bioorganic & Medicinal Chemistry
& Chemical Biology of 
Natural Products

Natural products chemistry has served as the backbone for modern therapeutic development programs since the dawn of the pharmaceutical age. Compounds derived from plants, microorganisms, and more recently marine organisms have enjoyed a rich history for providing inspiration for many of the molecules we use in medicine today. Every year, known chemotypes of natural products emerge as new lead structures for therapeutic development, and a small but growing number go on to serve as important next generation molecular probes in chemical biology research. Chemical biology is a burgeoning field at the interface of chemistry, biology, and biomedical research. It uses structurally distinct compounds, which serve as chemical tools (molecular probes) for specifically disrupting the cell cycle, to adress fundamental questions in molecular, cellular, and developmental biology.