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Home > Markets > Pharmaceuticals > Drug Discovery > Natural Products
Natural Products
Natural Sources Offer New Opportunities for Drug Discovery
During the last half of the 20th century, small molecule pharmaceutical drug discovery was typically the result of modifying a known molecule with the desired pharmacological activity through rational design or combinatorial chemistry. However, in recent times, drug discovery chemists have found and continue to discover new drug candidate opportunities in natural products. Some of that has come from studying the use of herbal products in undeveloped countries and some from the discovery of ancient treatments such as Traditional Chinese Medicines.
Regardless of the complexity of the matrix from which the pharmacologically active ingredient is extracted, the Thermo Scientific IC, RSLC and LC/MS system solutions offer the analytical drug discovery chemist the tools to find the needle in the haystack.
New Discoveries, Novel Candidates from Ancient Remedies
With the opening up of China the past decade there has also been a discovery and acceptance of new ways to treat various illnesses with ancient medicines derived from natural sources. Traditional Chinese Medicines (TCM) is an emerging area of drug discovery that identifies the active ingredient(s) found in ages-old remedies for everything from influenza to malaria to cancer. Sources of traditional Chinese medicines are found in extracts from both plants and animals. Investigations obviously have to contend with complex samples.
The high resolution offered by the Dionex RSLC system solutions enable drug discovery scientists to separate out these highly complex mixtures with the sensitivity needed to positively identify potential drug candidates.
- Liquid Chromatography
- Ion Chromatography
- Sample Preparation
- Mass Spectrometry
- Chromatography Data Systems
