Natural Products Blog

Our first Issue of 2011 is already here.

We are very excited about it and looking forward to making 2011 another successful year for NPR. Thank you to all our authors, readers and referees for a fantastic 2010. A big thanks goes also to the NPR Editorial Board for their support and enthusiasm.

In this first Issue you will find a brief Editorial by the new NPR Chair, Bradley Moore and the NPR Editor Richard Kelly.

This is followed by a very interesting and different viewpoint by Johannes Erkens on why chemists should be aware of the essentials of plant naming (free to access from tomorrow, 21st December, until the end of January).
Christopher Vanderwal tells us about chlorosulfolipids in the first highlight of 2011 and then we move to 6 very informative reviews.

Robert Cichewicz and Phillip Williams open this first NPR issue with two reviews on different medicinal chemistry topics. Cichewicz’s review explores the therapeutic lead potential of secondary metabolites for the treatment of protein-misfolding-related neurodegenerative diseases whereas Williams’ review looks at Alzheimer’s drug leads.

Ricardo Riguera talks about the use of NMR methods in complex mixtures and Blaine Pfeifer writes about heterologous biosynthesis as a route to access the beneficial properties of natural products.

István Molnár also looks at biosynthesis of NP; however, he focuses on the biosynthesis and biochemistry of cyclooligomer nonribosomal peptides fungal cyclooligomer depsipeptides.

This first Issue finishes with Ronald Parry‘s review on naturally occurring nitro compounds and the biosynthesis of the nitro group.

We hope you enjoy reading our first issue of 2011 and we want to wish you all a very nice New Year and the warmest Seasonal Greetings.

Natural Product Reports‘ last issue of the year is now published on line.

In this issue you will be able to discover the relationship between insects and natural products, anti-influenza agents and tradicional Chinese medicine, anti-HIV and natural products, a review on the pyrrolic ring in NPs, spiridioxynaphthalenes, organic guanidine derivatives in natural products and an update on stemona alkaloids. 

All of this in a very successful 2010 last issue.

We hope you enjoy it.

Nominations are now open for the 2011 NPR Lecture Award.

Anyone can make a nomination for the award. Simply send the name of the person you would like to nominate, along with a brief justification, to the Editor, Dr Richard Kelly. All nominations should be received by Monday 6th December.

The NPR Lecture Award is an annual event which is held at an international meeting of the recipient’s choosing. The recipient will be someone who has made significant research contribution to natural products chemistry in its broadest sense. The winner will be selected by a panel of judges, who will announce the result in early 2011.

Previous winners of the award include John Blunt of the University of Canterbury, New Zealand and Jason Micklefield of the University of Manchester, UK. The 2010 winner – Chris Walsh, from Harvard Medical School, US – will be delivering his lecture at the Pacifichem meeting in December 2010.

Issue 11 of Natural Product Reports is now published on line.

In this new issue, you will find interesting reviews on diterpenoids, pigments of fungi, the roles of flavones, moeromycin family antibiotics, Kdo monossacharide, indole alkaloids, sesquiterpenoids and the bioprospect for microbial antituberculosis leads.

A very diverse and informative issue on natural product reports.

I hope you like it.

Read it here.