This book addresses the highly relevant and complex subject of research on drugs from natural products, discussing the current hot topics in the field. It also provides a detailed overview of the strategies used to research and develop these drugs.

Respected experts explore issues involved in the production chain and when looking for new medicinal agents, including aspects such as therapeutic potential, functional foods, ethnopharmacology, metabolomics, virtual screening and regulatory scenarios.

Further, the book describes strategic methods of isolation and characterization of active principles, biological assays, biotechnology of plants, synthesis, clinical trials and the use of tools to identity active principles.

Chapter 1- Medicinal Plants and Phytomedicines

Chapter 2- Plant Product With Antifungal Activity: from Field to Biotechnology Strategies
Chapter 3- Liquid Chromatography for Plant Metabolite Profiling in the Field of Drug Discovery
Chapter 4- Functional Foods as Source of Bioactive Principles: Some Marked Examples
Chapter 5- The Role of Flavonoids as Modulators of Inflammation and on Cell Signaling Pathways
Chapter 6- Current Approaches to Isolation and Structural Elucidation of Active Compounds from Natural Products
Chapter 7- Syntheses of Asymmetrically Substituted Pyrans of Natural Origin
Chapter 8- Natural Products as Sources of Anticancer Agents: Current Approaches and Perspectives
Chapter 9- Virtual Screening for the Discovery of Active Principles from Natural Products
Chapter 10- Current Regulatory Environment of Herbal Medicinal Products in the European Union
Chapter 11- Development and Use of Polymeric Nanoparticles for the Encapsulation and Administrationof Plant Extracts
Chapter 12- NMR Identification of Biologically Active Natural Products: Strategies and Challenges
Chapter 13- Herbal Medicine and Public Health Care: Current and Future Challenges.