Natural Compounds Enabled Therapies

We live in the golden age of medicine and patients benefit from a variety of valuable drugs that are successfully used as therapeutics for various diseases. They increase both life expectancy and quality of life and enable painless surgical interventions. Most of these drugs come directly or indirectly from nature and the narrative of their development and success are presented in this book.

After a long scientific adventure, Streptomycin, a metabolite from the bacterium Streptomyces griseus turned out to be effective against tuberculosis, the scourge of mankind. At the same time, the famous PAS (a derivative of the naturally occurring salicylic acid) was developed as an equally effective agent against TB. The complex history and the many biological effects of aspirin are discussed in the light of new findings. Another chapter shows how the great German poet Wolfgang Goethe encountered atropine, an ancient poison.

Also discussed is how nitric oxide and nitroglycerin (an explosive material) provide relief from angina pectoris and other heart diseases and how a deadly poison from spoiled sausages enabled not only a treatment of several previously untreatable diseases but also the opened the way for foundation of a billion-dollar health industry. 

Further chapters describe

-          discovery and mechanism of action of colchicine, an alkaloid from the plant Colchicum introduced in the therapy of gout.

-          the complex story behind the groundbreaking discovery of penicillin.

-          the development of L-DOPA for the treatment of Parkinson disease, and finally the history of discovery and use of digitalis in the therapy of heart failure.

In total, there are 10 chapters, each with a disease, which is briefly described with a story. Historical backgrounds are discussed, and the people and character traits are briefly illuminated. The book also contains photos of people, plants, documents. It is an odyssey with stations in medicine, biology, chemistry, pharmacology, botany, mythology and archaeology. The book is written in a generally understandable way, and no prior knowledge is required. It is of interest to physicians and students of Medicine and Chemical Biology, researchers in the field of Life Sciences, and for people interested in the history of Science.