Description :

There is an ever-increasing demand for natural compounds as drugds and as disease-preventive phytochemicales because consumers have become more and more health conscious. Contrary to general expectations, attempts to use combinatorial chemistry to yield numerous products with medical effects surpassing those of natural products have failed. Biotechnological approaches have the potentiel to meet the challenge of producing sufficient amounts of both known and new compounds. This book provides a comprehensive treatment of recent developments ralated to natural products and their classes, such as phytoestrogens, taxol, stilbenes, guggusterones, camptothecin, and bacosides. It provides essential source material for students, teachers ans researchers working in the field of agriculture, botany, biotechnology, pharmacy, the environmental sciences and in the drug industry.