By Jason Socrates Bardi Finding chemicals with biologically useful properties has become the stuff of modern day legends. Compounds that exhibit anti-tumor activity, viral replication inhibitor molecules, thermally stable enzymes, and other holy grails that achieve biological goals have been found in nature. And so from the Pacific yew groves to the deep sea vents, we quest after these undiscovered, potentially useful compounds.
Nature provides and science supplies.
But uncovering nature's secret compounds and finding ways to synthesize them is only the beginning. A basic science laboratory is interested in not only what we can get from nature, but what we can learn from it. But in fact, nature rarely makes the molecules for the reasons that we find them useful or interesting. Because the compounds we discover may not have evolved to do exactly what we want them to do, we cannot expect to find the best agents in nature. However, what we can expect to find are lead compounds from which we can gain insight into the design of others.