自然界的分子才是最好的药物来源
来自芝加哥路透社 (Chicago Reuters)的一项消息指出，科学家最新的一项研究发现 就过去25 年来，在美国地区上市的药物中，大约有七成的成功案例，其药物发展的源头都来自于自然界，至于真正透过繁杂的手续，在实验室里合成的药物并不多，由此建议相关的药物研发单位，可能从自然存在的分子下手，比较有成功的机会。
据了解 2004年是过去24 年以来，通过审核药物数量最少的一年，就美国地区就仅有25 个临床的新药上市，此一现象提醒了科学家，开始去审视过去成功药物的经验，因此而提出这个 "回归自然"(back-to-nature) 的想法。
美国癌症研究所的 David Newman博士，接受路透社电话访问的时候指出，化学家虽然合成了数以百万计的化合物数据库，提供作为药物筛选的目标，但这些为数众多的化合物，绝大多数仅具有简单的结构，但临床上来自自然界，具有药效的分子，大部份的结构并不单纯，因此从现有的数据库中，挖掘出具有潜力的新药，机会并不会太大。
Newman 博士并举例指出，像阿司匹林(Aspirin) 这个广泛使用于解热镇痛的药物，就是来自于柳树(willow tree) 的萃取物，而近年来在抗癌药物市场上，炒的沸沸扬扬的紫杉醇(Taxol) ，就是萃取自太平洋紫杉(Pacific Yew tree) ，至于抗直肠癌效果极佳的药物irinotecan ，则是原生自中国的喜树(Camptotheca acuminate) 所萃取的。
因此 Newman博士和他的研究团队，在三月份出刊的自然产物 (Natural Products)期刊中，提出这样的呼吁，希望科学家多往自然界中，挖掘具有潜力的分子，以缩短药物上市的时间。
(资料来源 : biocompare)
英文原文：
Mother nature still a rich source of new drugs
By Julie Steenhuysen
CHICAGO (Reuters) - At least 70 percent of all new drugs introduced in the United States in the past 25 years come from nature despite the use of sophisticated techniques to design products in the lab, researchers reported on Monday.
Their study indicates that a back-to-nature approach might yield better possibilities for companies looking for the next blockbuster drug.
Drug discovery hit a 24-year low in 2004, with just 25 unique compounds known as new chemical entities introduced that year, said David Newman, who runs the U.S. National Cancer Institute’s natural products branch.
"Chemists started making libraries of hundreds of thousands to millions of compounds. But they were simple compounds," he said in a telephone interview.
"Mother Nature doesn’t make simple compounds. Mother Nature wants compounds that fit into particular places."
Newman links a dearth of new drug development at U.S. drug companies with the shift away from nature as a main source of drug compounds.
"Wyeth and Merck are the only two U.S. manufacturers of that size that still use natural products as one of their sources to look for drugs," he said.
Newman’s study found more than two-thirds of all drugs discovered in the last quarter-century have come from nature. He believes linking nature with advanced chemistry techniques that combine a vast array of molecules to speed drug development will likely yield much more fruitful results.
Newman and colleague Gordon Cragg reviewed the origins of new drugs developed in the past quarter-century and found that despite the introduction of a host of high-tech drug discovery tools, natural products continue to be the inspiration for most new drugs.
NextPage
NATURAL INSPIRATION
Aspirin, a staple in most medicine cabinets, was originally obtained from the willow tree. The widely used chemotherapy treatment Taxol was derived from Pacific yew tree.
"Even though it is made in a different way now, it is absolutely identical to the material that comes from the yew," Newman said.
Likewise, the colon cancer treatment irinotecan, a standard chemotherapy that interferes with the growth of cancer cells, and topotecan, a chemotherapy used for ovarian cancer and lung cancer, are both modifications of the tree Camptotheca acuminata, a native of China.
In fact, Newman and Cragg found that about half of all anti-cancer drugs introduced since the 1940s are either natural products or medicines derived directly from natural products.
Newman’s study, to be published in the March 23 issue of the Journal of Natural Products, is an expanded and updated version of reports published in 1997 and in 2003.
The researchers sought to trace how nature has inspired drugs currently on the market.
"A chemist would never conceive of making Taxol unless he or she had seen Taxol first," Newman said. "So what we looked back at was, what was the intellectual underpinning of the drugs that were currently on the market."
Newman said the advent of new drug discovery techniques such as combinatorial chemistry in the 1990s diverted many drug company resources away from a rich source of new drug compounds.
The technique allows for the rapid combination of many different but similar compounds -- basically industrializing the role of the chemist.
"Mother Nature’s influence is alive and well," Newman said. "But you have to look for it in a subtle way. She doesn’t come out and wave a broom in your face."
摘自《华文生技网》
据了解 2004年是过去24 年以来，通过审核药物数量最少的一年，就美国地区就仅有25 个临床的新药上市，此一现象提醒了科学家，开始去审视过去成功药物的经验，因此而提出这个 "回归自然"(back-to-nature) 的想法。
美国癌症研究所的 David Newman博士，接受路透社电话访问的时候指出，化学家虽然合成了数以百万计的化合物数据库，提供作为药物筛选的目标，但这些为数众多的化合物，绝大多数仅具有简单的结构，但临床上来自自然界，具有药效的分子，大部份的结构并不单纯，因此从现有的数据库中，挖掘出具有潜力的新药，机会并不会太大。
Newman 博士并举例指出，像阿司匹林(Aspirin) 这个广泛使用于解热镇痛的药物，就是来自于柳树(willow tree) 的萃取物，而近年来在抗癌药物市场上，炒的沸沸扬扬的紫杉醇(Taxol) ，就是萃取自太平洋紫杉(Pacific Yew tree) ，至于抗直肠癌效果极佳的药物irinotecan ，则是原生自中国的喜树(Camptotheca acuminate) 所萃取的。
因此 Newman博士和他的研究团队，在三月份出刊的自然产物 (Natural Products)期刊中，提出这样的呼吁，希望科学家多往自然界中，挖掘具有潜力的分子，以缩短药物上市的时间。
(资料来源 : biocompare)
英文原文：
Mother nature still a rich source of new drugs
By Julie Steenhuysen
CHICAGO (Reuters) - At least 70 percent of all new drugs introduced in the United States in the past 25 years come from nature despite the use of sophisticated techniques to design products in the lab, researchers reported on Monday.
Their study indicates that a back-to-nature approach might yield better possibilities for companies looking for the next blockbuster drug.
Drug discovery hit a 24-year low in 2004, with just 25 unique compounds known as new chemical entities introduced that year, said David Newman, who runs the U.S. National Cancer Institute’s natural products branch.
"Chemists started making libraries of hundreds of thousands to millions of compounds. But they were simple compounds," he said in a telephone interview.
"Mother Nature doesn’t make simple compounds. Mother Nature wants compounds that fit into particular places."
Newman links a dearth of new drug development at U.S. drug companies with the shift away from nature as a main source of drug compounds.
"Wyeth and Merck are the only two U.S. manufacturers of that size that still use natural products as one of their sources to look for drugs," he said.
Newman’s study found more than two-thirds of all drugs discovered in the last quarter-century have come from nature. He believes linking nature with advanced chemistry techniques that combine a vast array of molecules to speed drug development will likely yield much more fruitful results.
Newman and colleague Gordon Cragg reviewed the origins of new drugs developed in the past quarter-century and found that despite the introduction of a host of high-tech drug discovery tools, natural products continue to be the inspiration for most new drugs.
NextPage
NATURAL INSPIRATION
Aspirin, a staple in most medicine cabinets, was originally obtained from the willow tree. The widely used chemotherapy treatment Taxol was derived from Pacific yew tree.
"Even though it is made in a different way now, it is absolutely identical to the material that comes from the yew," Newman said.
Likewise, the colon cancer treatment irinotecan, a standard chemotherapy that interferes with the growth of cancer cells, and topotecan, a chemotherapy used for ovarian cancer and lung cancer, are both modifications of the tree Camptotheca acuminata, a native of China.
In fact, Newman and Cragg found that about half of all anti-cancer drugs introduced since the 1940s are either natural products or medicines derived directly from natural products.
Newman’s study, to be published in the March 23 issue of the Journal of Natural Products, is an expanded and updated version of reports published in 1997 and in 2003.
The researchers sought to trace how nature has inspired drugs currently on the market.
"A chemist would never conceive of making Taxol unless he or she had seen Taxol first," Newman said. "So what we looked back at was, what was the intellectual underpinning of the drugs that were currently on the market."
Newman said the advent of new drug discovery techniques such as combinatorial chemistry in the 1990s diverted many drug company resources away from a rich source of new drug compounds.
The technique allows for the rapid combination of many different but similar compounds -- basically industrializing the role of the chemist.
"Mother Nature’s influence is alive and well," Newman said. "But you have to look for it in a subtle way. She doesn’t come out and wave a broom in your face."
摘自《华文生技网》
上一篇:世界首个胃病疫苗在重庆诞生
下一篇:韩成功的实现了对活细胞的分化过程的拍摄
