BVB221 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Poison Dart Frog, Monarch Butterfly, Papaver
Document Summary
Natural medicines in this course: biologically-derived molecules (in this unit, from plants) Excluded: minerals/fossil fuels (for convenience sake, synthetic, alternative medicines, traditional medicines. Natural medicines have been used for all of human existence: some would say earlier (animals) Modern medicine relies on natural products as: a direct source, raw material in production process, an inspiration - produce the same or similar product synthetically. Modern ideas on chemistry (atoms, molecules, chemical reactions) Emergence of organic chemistry & modern ideas on pharmaceutical drugs. Unprocessed biological material had limitations & medical practices at the time were rarely effective & frequently hazardous. Concerted effort to isolate active principles in biological materials. Classifications (most are arbitrary, just depends what your discipline in: organisms from which they"re derived (biology, biosynthetic pathway (biochemistry, structure of the molecules (organic chemistry, their use (medicinal, a mix of any of the above. Any compound that has been modified from its original state is not appropriate for this subject.
