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Abstract from conference NAPRALERT is a database on natural products, including data on ethnobotany, chemistry, pharmacology, toxicology, and clinical trials from literature dating back to the 19th century. Established in 1975 by Norman R. Farnsworth, it became a web accessible resource in 2005 but soon became stagnant while literature grew exponentially. After a complete rewrite of the platform, the focus is now on connecting this resource to the rest of the existing databases and expanding its usability.

Composite-based, tooth colored dental restorations, in spite of their aesthetic appeal, are limited by a short life span. Every subsequent restoration results in the loss of healthy dental tissue. Thus, a bio-mimetic approach has been developed to enhance the mechanical strength of dentin using plant-derived proanthocyanidins (PACs). From a panel of eight active plants, grape seed extract showed the highest dentin biomodification potential, a 15-fold enhancement of dentin stiffness measured in MPa.

NAPRALERT is a database on natural products, including data on the ethnobotany, chemistry, pharmacology, toxicology, and clinical trials. It was established in 1975 by the late Norman R. Farnsworth, at a time when computerized databases were just starting. It became web-accessible in 2005. Due to resource constraints, few enhancements were made to the existing database structure. Now, 10 years later, NAPRALERT faces the challenge of catching-up with other well-established resources.

1D NMR spectra contain a wealth of vital structural information that can enhance the description of bioactive molecules. The present study demonstrates how quantum-mechanics driven 1H iterative Full Spin Analysis (QM-HiFSA) is capable of distinguishing spectral detail that cannot be interpreted manually or visually, but provides important information of the 3D structure and bonding (re-)activity of the molecules. This approach is established by analyzing 1D NMR spectra of oligomeric proanthocyanidins (OPACs), which exhibit high dentin bioactivity, and were isolated from the inner bark of pine.

The acquisition of 1D 1H NMR (HNMR) spectra is one of earliest steps in characterizing natural products and other organic molecules. For publication, HNMR information usually is “converted” into a table format, and sometimes spectral plots are provided. However, this transformation is lossy and frequently insufficient for unambiguous dereplication. This ambiguity can even lead to structural revision, such as in the recent case of aquatolide (1), a sesquiterpene lactone from Asteriscus aquaticus.

C-glycosylated flavones, including orientin, isoorientin, vitexin, and isovitexin, are minor but biologically significant constituents of fruit extracts of the chaste-tree (Vitex agnus-castus L.), a botanical supplement used to treat PMS and postmenopausal symptoms. The partition coefficient, or K-value, is the ratio of the concentration of a compound in each phase of a biphasic solvent mixture and is a physicochemical property of a particular compound in a particular solvent system. This value can be used to predict retention volume (V ret) in a countercurrent separation procedure.

A recent article by Baell(1) on the problems experienced by medicinal chemists with pan-assay interference compounds (PAINS) and Shoichet’s work(2) on the impact of aggregation occurring in high throughput screening libraries, prompts a consideration of how these and other similar problems are experienced by pharmacognosists with promiscuous invalid metabolites as panaceas (PIMPs). Contrary to the classical definition of secondary metabolites as being species specific (or near specific), several natural products, particularly in the more extensively investigated plant kingdom, are common across species, genera, and even families (e.