Plants make substances called alkaloids to protect themselves, and humans have long taken advantage of these chemicals, using them in painkillers, treatments for disease and household products such as ...

Enzymes that play a crucial role in the production of the malaria drug quinine and other important cinchona alkaloids have ...

A step forward in our understanding of how plants produce alkaloids could herald new pharmaceuticals. Biologists from the University of York (UK) have discovered enzymes that catalyze the biosynthesis ...

The fungus Aspergillus fumigatus produces a group of previously unknown natural products. With reference to plant isoquinoline alkaloids, these substances have been named fumisoquins. Researchers have ...

Characteristic features of plants, such as their active ingredients or flower color, may have developed through very ...

New research published in the journal Structure has found that a natural extract from daffodils has cancer-killing properties. It lays out the molecular mechanism by which the extract could trigger ...