What Is Plant-Derived Bioactive Compounds and Natural Drug Discovery — Applications and Science Explained

About one-quarter of all pharmaceutical drugs approved by the FDA derive directly or indirectly from plants. Aspirin comes from willow bark, the cancer fighter paclitaxel from Pacific yew trees, and digoxin—a heart medication—from foxglove. Yet for every drug we’ve successfully extracted from nature’s medicine cabinet, thousands of promising plant compounds remain unexplored, locked away in … Read more