Drug Candidates from Natural Sources

Natural resources have been used for their healing properties and as pharmaceutical raw materials in several traditional medicine systems for years. They have shown different biological activities with the active metabolites they contain. Today, many compounds of natural origin and their derivatives are used as drugs or form a model to synthesize new compounds in drug design research. Scrutinization of plants, animals, and marine organisms continues at full speed in developing innovative and safe drug candidate molecules for various ailments. Numerous natural resources are still waiting to be studied regarding their medicinal properties. This Section welcomes recent research and review articles focused on the biological activities of plant, animal, and marine-based natural compounds or extracts. The topics include but are not limited to in vitro and in vivo activity studies, in silico screening, activity-guided fractionation, isolation, and identification of natural compounds.