David G. I. Kingston , Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University, Department of Chemistry, M/C 0212 , 3111 Hahn Hall, West Campus Drive, Blacksburg, VA, US, 24061 | Ronald Quinn | Shigeki Matsunaga | Ji-Kai Liu

Over 45% of anticancer drugs developed since the 1940s are natural products or derived directly from natural products, and natural products continue to provide novel and exciting leads to new anticancer agents. The massive potential of the microbial flora, and the possibility of discovering new drugs from old sources by the use of novel screens, indicate that drug discovery from natural products is approaching the dawn of a new life. As one author put it "A revival in interest in using natural products in early stage drug discovery could be exactly what is needed to boost pharmaceutical output." This symposium brings together leaders in the discovery and development of anticancer natural products from both academia and industry, and from many countries of the Pacific rim, and will be of interest to synthetic and natural product chemists as well as to pharmacologists and biologists. Invited speakers include Ji-Kai Liu, A. Douglas Kinghorn, Ren Tan, Masami Ishibashi, Yang-Chang Wu, Minoru Yoshida, Hideaki Oikawa, William Fenical, Amy Wright, Shigeki Matsunaga, Rohan Davis, Michele Prinsep, Mark Hamann, Frank Koehn, and Ronald Quinn. Symposium support from Eisai Inc. and the ACS Division of Organic Chemistry is gratefully acknowledged.