NATURAL PRODUCTS AND THEIR APPLICATIONS Natural products have
various applications. 1) Drugs and Drug leads. 2) Cosmetic and
Perfume industry. 3) Paints and Varnishes. 4) As foods. 5) In
defence( military). 6) For pest control. A natural product is
usually considered as a pure chemical. However, even the raw
materials from which they are obtained are considered natural
products by some schools. The important applications are
elaborated below. 1) Drugs and Drug leads:- This is a familiar
field as far as pharmacy is concerned. Quinine was first used
for malaria and later quines were developed. Thus, quinine is
both a drug and drug lead, same is the case with vinicristin and
viniblastin for a number of years. They were used as such to
treat cancers, mainly lukemia before semi-synthetic derivatives
were prepared. The latest example of natural products acting as
drug leads is the venum of a viper. Based on the structure of a
peptide isolated from this, majority of the "prils"(Enalapril)
were developed. This is to