Natural Products

The Natural Products Group promotes the advancement of knowledge related to the chemistry of natural products through the development and application of innovative pipelines with a focus on discovering new drugs and preserving Brazil’s biodiversity.

Through partnerships with companies and academia, the group’s main activities focus on: a) building libraries of natural products, using the organization of collections of chemical samples (extracts, fractions and purified compounds) obtained from plants, microorganisms, invertebrates (both marine and terrestrial), and other biological origins; b) chemical mapping of biodiversity via metabolomics using mass spectrometry, with a focus on the dereplication process; c) isolation of bioactive compounds to prove their chemical structures (when necessary); d) development of new methodologies for optimizing and automating results and processes.

The Natural Products Group works to integrate all these skills dynamically in order to highlight the vital importance of molecules from Brazil’s biodiversity and of in-depth study of our living organisms, strengthening the concepts of preservation, innovation and sustainable use of natural resources.