Abstract
As many as 50% of the most widely prescribed drugs in the U.S. are either small-molecule natural products or synthetic molecules that were synthesized using natural products as templates in their design. The anticancer agent paclitaxel (Taxol), from the Pacific yew tree, and the immunosuppressant cyclosporin, obtained from a fungal species, are two examples. Despite this obvious importance of natural products to modern-day medicine, some have questioned the role that natural products will play in future drug discovery. Ethnobotanist Mark J. Plotkin has no such doubts. In Medicine Quest: In Search of Nature's Healing Secrets, Plotkin eloquently enlightens readers on some of the possibilities for discovery of new lead bioactive compounds from unusual natural sources, such as the skin of poison dart frogs, the defense glands of aquatic beetles, spider venoms, and giant tubeworms that grow in deep-sea hydrothermal vents. Medicine Quest is a worthy successor to Plotkin's 1994 book, Tales of a Shaman's ...
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