Bioactive Natural Products

Catalog description

This course is aimed at students with an interest in natural products research. Natural products are used as active components in medicinal products, as model compounds for further development into medicinally active drugs, as ingredients in food and for flavor and fragrances, among other very useful and interesting applications. An overview of the structural variety and activity of natural products will be presented along with their isolation and structural determination. Overall, the course will offer an introduction to the work that is customary in natural product research. This course will cover: Strategies to select the plant or marine material for study; main groups of natural products derived from plants; representative natural products derived from marine organisms; preparation of extracts and selection of active fractions, screening strategies; separation and purification of active components; bench-top bioassays and chemical assays and structure elucidation (especially 2D-NMR spectroscopy) Student's performance will be assessed by weekly assignments on the topics discussed in lecture and exams. 3 hrs. lec. Prerequisites: 09-217 or 09-219