Historically, botanical products have been the source of virtually all drugs, and medicinal
preparations of plants are still important sources of therapeutics for much of the world's
population. Here in the United States, it is perhaps surprising and certainly not widely known
that plant-derived products have remained a major source of new therapeutic small
molecules. About half the pharmaceuticals developed during the last couple decades and
approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) either were natural products, were …