Natural Products Discovery
Natural products are important resources for new drug discovery. Researchers in Center for Integrated BioSystems (CIB), Utah State University are exploring the bioactive compounds from natural products including plants, marine organisms and microbes by genomics, proteomics and metabolomics approaches.
Why this research is important
The natural products and functional foods market is $40 billion worldwide. Utah produces commercial products that accounts for ~$4 billion of that market in dietary supplement sector. The world functional foods market, especially in Europe and Japan, is expanding quickly. The amount of research done in Utah in this area exceedingly small compared to the size of the production in the State. With Utah controlling 10% of the world market, as of yet, has little to no research base. This situation is unacceptable for our state and this industry. As a result, of the strong market presence in our state the Utah Natural Products Alliance was formed in 1991 to represent the industrial interests and provide a common ground to promote high quality manufacturing protocols and standards for this sector. Recently, GMP production procedures were implemented – indicating the focus and effort to provide high quality and standardized preparations for consumers.
Natural products have had a major impact on the treatment and development of drugs for cancer and infectious diseases. During 1981–2002, about 60% of the small-molecule new chemicals introduced as drugs worldwide are related natural products. Studying natural products will help to find new drugs in the future. CIB set up a Natural Product Group in year 2006. Our approach is to collaborate with others around the world and to isolate compounds from our own unique microbial isolates. We are actively pursuing collaborations in China, India, and the Dominican Republic. Our group has two collaborations in China (one at a university and one with a hospital clinic) to isolate and prove the efficacy of natural Chinese remedies.
What is Natural Product?
Natural Product Study is the study to isolate and characterize novel natural products of interest to human health and disease treatment. Natural products are the source resulted in compounds that are being developed to treat cancer, bacteria and many other diseases.
Scientific Perspective
Topical Overview
Utah State University researchers are discovering the new anticancer and antimicrobial drugs by genomics, proteomics and metabolomics approaches. Our research tools include Affymetrix Microarray System, Waters Protein Expression System and Waters Metabolomics Study System. Our goal is to understand drug anticancer and antimicrobial mechanism and find better anticancer and antimicrobial drugs.