Over the last decade, there has been a renewing interest in natural products
research. The exceptional developments in the areas of separation science,
spectroscopic techniques associated with microplate-based ultrasensitive in vitro assays
provide a novel and interesting drug design from natural products. The various available
chromatographic techniques have made possible the preisolation analyses of crude
extracts or fractions from different natural sources. This chapter presents a general
overview of the processes involved in natural product research, starting from extraction
to determination of the structures of purified products.
Keywords: Natural products, extraction, identification, in vitro, drug,
phytochemical, separation, isolation, analysis, molecules.
