Natural Products as Anticancer Agents: Recent Advancement and Future Directions

Cancer is one of the biggest health-care challenges to human race and requires an innovative treatment strategy for cure. Undesirable side effects and rapid development of resistance to the conventional therapy have made the scenario more alarming. The chemical diversity of the natural products is immense and therefore is an amazing reserve for the finding of novel anticancer agents. Further, natural products have played a significant role in providing the novel and effective treatment inputs in the field on anticancer research. The compounds obtained from these sources range from a simple peptide, Dolastatin 10, to a complex polyether, Halichonrin B. Natural products have been source of many anticancer agents that are being used in clinical or pre-clinical trials. Further, many compounds derived from natural products have shown potential to be future anticancer agents. Due to their actions on numerous targets natural products are considered ideal for anticancer drug development. Further, their selectivity towards cancer cells is more in comparison to conventional treatment, so their toxicity is lower. This chapter summarizes the progress and ongoing developments in natural products and their analogs as anticancer agents. The challenges and future prospects of natural products based anticancer agents are also discussed. 

Keywords: Anticancer agents, Bioactive, Cancer, Natural products, Phytopharma-ceutical, Secondary metabolite.