Natural products, aka. Nature’s chemistry.

I was lucky enough to study at the John Innes Centre, whose name you may recognise from bags of compost! It is a plant and microbial science research institute, where I completed a postgraduate research project, investigating natural products produced by bacteria. These are compounds produced by organisms that aren’t required for their survival or reproduction, but often give some selective advantage in their environmental niche.

If you are interested, you can find out more about my research here.

Without knowing at the time, natural products were some of the first things we recorded as humans, in the documentation of traditional medicines throughout history. The Sumerians noted medicinal and physiological effects of plants and herbs as early as 3500 B.C., such as the properties of willow bark, which we now know to contain the active ingredient, aspirin.

Did you know, a large proportion of the antibiotics that we use today are produced by bacteria that live in the soil? Nature produces an archive of chemical diversity that we use every day, without even thinking about it, from the agricultural field to the pharmacy. This is just one of the reasons why I think that Nature is amazing.