More than half of clinically approved drugs are derived from products found in the natural world. After years of study, researchers have yet to exhaust the chemical diversity available in natural products. It’s estimated that just a small fraction – less than 10 percent - of known bacterial species have been examined for bioactive compounds. What’s more, there are millions fungal species still to be studied.

In this Science Pub, chemistry researcher Sandra Loesgen will introduce you to chemistry found in nature that has changed the world, including new developments that may allow new drugs to be developed from dirt and oceans. She will also give an overview of the drug discovery program underway in OSU’s Loesgen Lab, where researchers find and develop new antibiotics, antivirals, and cytotoxic compound from microbial natural products.