For the rest of July, Nature Chemical Biology is offering free access to about ten articles on research and training in natural products.

Investigations into natural products have recently regained prominence with the increasing understanding of their biological significance and increasing recognition of the origin and function of their structural diversity. This issue highlights some of the major questions and advances in natural products research, from recent synthetic approaches to access complicated natural products to a new educational program which utilizes natural products as a basis for discovery-based research.

One article addresses how the molecular promiscuity of plants might provide an evolutionary advantage, another discusses an undergraduate training program in drug discovery from endophytic fungi (fungi that grow on plants), and a third discusses the regulatory challenges in gaining approval for multi-component botanical therapeutics (MCBTs or herbal mixtures).

Some great free content from Nature Journals, for a limited time.