Role of Natural Products in Cancer therapy

Cancer is one of the challenging diseases in developing as well as in developed countries. In one of the reports, the WHO published that almost 7.6 million people died because of cancer related diseases and most of them were living in low-income countries. Therefore, it seems that there is a mounting urgency for the development of new and more efficient methods for the cure and the prevention of cancer. Plants produce an enormous variety of natural products (NPs) with diverse pharmacological properties. Rich structural and chemical diversity, biochemical specificity, pharmacological and other molecular properties make NPs favorable leads for drug discovery. About 45% of today¿s best selling drugs originating from natural products or their derivatives. In the arena of Cancer more that 80% of the clinically important anti-cancer drugs originate from natural products. This book traces natural products drug discovery, outlining important drugs from natural sources especially plants that revolutionized treatment of serious diseases such as cancer.