Chapter 11: Conclusion: The Future of Natural Products

The study of natural products is the investigation of their formation and their properties. In the case of the former, biosynthesis has been a prevailing feature of natural product chemistry and a spur to the development of new techniques to trace the steps by which biological systems construct natural products. The application of reductionist chemistry has allowed us to determine the alphabet used to construct the phrases that make up some aspects of the natural world. In some cases, it has even provided complete sentences but, in many others, our knowledge is fragmentary and the relationship between individual natural products and whole biological systems remains obscure. The development and use of increasingly sensitive tools may not be sufficient to allow chemists to increase their understanding of the world. The investigation of molecular interactions may not be sufficient. As Democritus understood, it is not just the atoms themselves that are important but also the spaces between them. In our preoccupation with molecules and what we are able to measure, we may be missing a wider perspective. In short, while we may have some sense of some of the fragments that make up the world, we may not be asking questions that elicit a response that will help us to move beyond observation and minor tweaking of the system towards a better appreciation of not only the properties of individual natural products but also their holistic nature in the world of living systems.