Mem Inst Oswaldo Cruz. 2000 Jan-Feb; 95(1): 115-20.

Medicinal products: regulation of biosynthesis in space and time.

Gottlieb OR, Borin MR.

Departamento de Fisiologia e FarmacodinÃ¢mica, Instituto Oswaldo Cruz, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, 21045-900, Brasil. ogottlieb@abc.org.br

We live in a "Demon-Haunted World". Human health care requires the ever increasing resistance of pathogens to be confronted by a correspondingly fast rate of discovery of novel antibiotics. One of the possible strategies towards this objective involves the rational localization of bioactive phytochemicals. The conceptual basis of the method consists in the surprisingly little known gearings of natural products with morphology, ecology and evolution of their plant source, i. e. an introspection into the general mechanisms of nature.