Project Number: 6408-21410-007-00
Project Type: Appropriated

Start Date: Mar 15, 2006
End Date: Mar 14, 2011

Objective:
The overall goal of this project is to discover, develop and foster commercialization of new bioactive natural products as new pharmaceuticals or agrichemicals, and to identify, characterize, and develop medicinal plants for production of pharmaceuticals as potential alternative crops.

Approach:
The approach includes a program of: (1) Discovery of secondary metabolites from natural resources with anti-infective and anti-cancer activities based on molecular and cell-based assays; (2) Characterizing mechanisms of action, selectivity, toxicity, and functional activity for the best candidate compounds with anti-microbial and anti-cancer properties in secondary assays and in animal models; and, (3) Selection, agronomics and analysis of medicinally important plants and their derived products.