THE NATURAL PRODUCTS SUPPORT GROUP PROCESSES ALL PLANT, MARINE, AND FUNGAL SPECIMENS THAT ARE ACQUIRED BY THE DTP/NCI FOR SCREENING IN THE 60 HUMAN TUMOR ANTI-CANCER SCREEN AND OTHER TEST SYSTEMS IN THE SEARCH FOR NEW DRUGS. THE NPSG PERFORMS A VARIETY OF OTHER TASKS AT THE REQUEST OF THE DTP, FOR EXAMPLE LARGE SCALE GRINDING AND EXTRACTING, LARGE SCALE ISOLATIONS, METHODS DEVELOPMENT, ANALYTICAL SUPPORT, GROWING AND OPTIMIZING OF FUNGAL CULTURES, DISC DIFFUSION ASSAYS, AND DRUG PREPARATIONS.
Natural Products Support Group includes the Extractions Lab, which processes higher plant, marine and fungal specimens for anti-cancer and anti-viral screening, and an Isolations Area which has chemists with expertise in natural products isolation, purification, structure elucidation and final product characterization for biologically active molecules. An analytical method is often developed in the earliest stage of an isolations project, then used to maximize the yield by monitoring an extraction or fermentation as it is occurring. Laboratory scale equipment is utilized to isolate enough material mass to validate purity, structure and biological activity. Equipment is available and expertise exists within the Natural Products Area for the scale up of the isolation and purification steps to enable gram to kilogram amounts of product to be produced.
Examples of biologically active natural products isolated in quantity are brefeldin-A (multi kg), wortmannin, illudin-M (multi gram level), cucurbitacin-E (multi gram level), pleurotin, jaspamide, leptomycin, fumitremorgin-C .
Please click these links below for more information regarding Natural Products Lab
Organization Chart Discover Recent Publications
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05/27/2003