NCCIH Research Blog

We hope you can join us on March 6 and April 28 for a two-part Hot Topics Webinar Series on emerging trends in natural products research.

This webinar series, Expanding Translationally Relevant Chemical Space: Insights Into Natural Product Resources, Technologies, and Mechanisms, will be hosted by the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH), in collaboration with other National Institutes of Health (NIH) Institutes and Centers (ICs). 

Leading researchers will discuss current work on the discovery and characterization of natural products, including the use of state-of-the-art tools and techniques. During the webinars, experts in the natural products field will touch on topics in organic structure analysis, metabologenomics, venomics, high-throughput phenotypic screening, electron microscopy techniques, host-microbe interactions, and structural biology. Representatives of NIH ICs will explain how natural products research fits in with their ICs’ research priorities. And there will be opportunities for the audience to ask questions. 

Part One of the webinar series will be held on March 6, 2023, from 2 to 4 p.m. ET. The focus will be on natural product research resources enabling discovery and development of natural products as lead compounds and research tools. Speakers will include:

• Barry O’Keefe, Ph.D., National Cancer Institute (NCI), will speak on discovery and development of natural products and the NCI natural product collection.
• Roger Linington, Ph.D., Simon Fraser University, will discuss high-throughput functional annotation of natural products using integrated activity profiling.
• Mandë Holford, Ph.D., City University of New York and the Sackler Institute for Comparative Genomics, American Museum of Natural History, will speak on comparative functional genomics in the discovery of new peptide research tools.

Part Two of the webinar series will be held on April 28, 2023, from 1 to 3 p.m. ET. The focus will be on applications of emerging research technologies to elucidate the mechanisms of action of bioactive natural products. Speakers will include:

• Hosea M. Nelson, Ph.D., Caltech, will discuss electron microscopy techniques to enable characterization of complex natural products.
• Melinda Diver, Ph.D., Sloan Kettering Institute, will speak on structural insights into ion channel detection of physical and chemical stimuli.
• Chelsi D. Cassilly, Ph.D., Harvard Medical School, will discuss chemical correlations between gut microbes and host responses.

For More Information

See the agenda for Part One and register to attend on March 6

See the agenda for Part Two and register to attend on April 28