Tag: Natural products

First discovered from a microbe in a Japanese soil sample, the precursor to ivermectin is indeed a natural product. However, the final antiparasitic medication, ivermectin, is not purely natural but a semisynthetic derivative, created through a specific chemical modification process.

By law, the FDA does not approve dietary supplements for safety and effectiveness before they are marketed, unlike pharmaceutical drugs. This fundamental regulatory difference is crucial for understanding the status of marine-derived ingredients like fucoxanthin and whether **is fucoxanthin FDA approved** in the way most people think of drug approval.

Neomycin is indeed a natural product, derived from the bacterium *Streptomyces fradiae*. Discovered in 1949 by microbiologist Selman Waksman, it belongs to the aminoglycoside class of antibiotics, which are known for their origin in soil-dwelling microorganisms. The production process involves cultivating this specific bacterium to yield the antibiotic compound, which is then isolated and purified for medicinal use.

Dating back to ancient Egyptian and Greek texts, extracts from the toxic plant *Colchicum* were used to treat joint pain. It is crucial to understand that **colchicine and Colchicum are not the same thing**; colchicine is the isolated, standardized, and precisely dosed medication derived from the plant, which itself is highly poisonous.

Approximately 50–70% of clinically used antibiotics are derived from microorganisms. The genus *Micromonospora*, a prolific producer of these vital bioactive compounds, plays a critical role in pharmacology by yielding important drugs like the aminoglycoside antibiotic, gentamicin.

In 2015, the Nobel Prize was awarded for the discovery of avermectins, the natural compounds from which ivermectin is derived. The question of *where is ivermectin found naturally?* is often misunderstood, as the drug itself does not exist in nature; instead, it is a modified version of compounds produced by a unique soil bacterium.

Over 60% of currently used anti-cancer agents are derived from or inspired by natural products, yet many people ask: **Where do chemotherapy drugs come from?**. The answer is a complex story of serendipitous discoveries, targeted research into nature's bounty, and modern synthetic breakthroughs in the lab.

Did you know that many plants and common foods contain naturally occurring compounds that can regulate vital biological processes in the body? A natural inhibitor is a molecule produced by an organism that decreases or blocks the activity of another specific enzyme or protein, serving as a fundamental mechanism of control in biological systems.

An estimated 25% of modern medicines are derived directly from rainforest plants, making the Amazon a critical source for global pharmacology [1.10.3, 1.8.4]. The question, 'What is the Amazon forest drug?' has no single answer, as the rainforest is home to countless medicinal compounds used for centuries.