Simple (Bench-Top) Bioassays and the Isolation of New Chemically Diverse Antitumor and Pesticidal Agents from Higher Plants

Abstract

Phytochemists cannot easily survive as basic scientists. Applied science has become essentially the only source for significant amounts of research funds. In our market-driven economy, government and industry have forced us to face this fact. A major purpose of science today is to solve the problems of society. So which of society’s problems are solvable by phytochemistry? The answers to this question are numerous, but our laboratory for the past 20 years has focused on quests for new antitumor and pesticidal agents from higher plants. Cancer death claims 1,500 people a day (one per minute) in the United States.1 The market for natural, environmentally friendly pesticides will gross nearly one billion dollars in 1998. Thus, the discovery of phytochemicals as new antitumor and pesticidal agents is justifiable and should be fundable.