| Summary: | Natural products- compounds derived from plants, microbes and marine organisms, have been an unsurpassed source of cancer drugs in the modern era of drug discovery.� The historical record is strong, but what is the current impact of natural� products in the discovery and development of cancer drugs, and importantly what are the prospects for natural products to be a valuable source of �future agents?� This volume attempts to address this question through a series of chapters authored by leading researchers in the field which effectively provide an in-depth view of several high impact areas of natural products cancer research. The volume begins with a focused analysis and rationale for the clinical success� of current natural product anti-cancer drugs. The following chapters then describe new natural product based drugs in three rapidly evolving target classes and modalities- agents which target tumor vasculature, inhibitors of histone deacetylase and other histone modifying enzymes, and �antibody drug conjugates.� Subsequent chapters examine the central role of natural product chemical scaffolds in the genesis of new anti-cancer therapeutics- first via the powerful application of chemical synthesis, and then through the �rapidly emerging fields of biosynthetic engineering and plant cell culture. �The volume concludes with an assessment of the critical role that natural products continue to play in the search for new cancer drug targets.� As the reader makes his or her way through the volume it may become clear that there is strong evidence that natural products will continue to exert a profound positive impact on cancer drug discovery.
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