Potential New Medicines: A Brief Introduction

With the recent advances in technology, it's only reasonable to presume that an increase in the number of cures and medicines must come in tandem. Therefore, medical researchers are always on the lookout for new sources of drugs and medicines. In this search, two considerations must be taken into account: the usage of accessible, commonplace (hence cheap) plants and the need to maintain biodiversity. Here are two examples:

The 20 naturally-occurring "essential" amino acids

For the first time, as recently as 2011, scientists have developed a means of introducing man-made/unnatural amino acids (i.e. not from the 20 naturally occurring amino acids) to proteins in multiple locations using bacteria they had created. This finding is particularly useful for engineering bacteria that produce new types of synthetic chemicals, through protein synthesis. Crucially, it introduces the possibility of making medicines/drugs that last longer in the blood stream.

Catharanthus pusillus (Tiny Periwinkle)

Recently, the discovery of natural drugs has concentrated on tropical "rainforest" plants due to their great diversity. Around 120 prescription drugs sold worldwide today come from rainforest plants directly. Furthermore, it was claimed that two-thirds of all medicines which were found to have cancer-preventing properties came from the rainforest by the U.S. National Cancer Institute. An example is the now-extinct periwinkle plant from Madagascar, which increased the chances of survival of kids with leukaemia from 20% to 80%.

The last steps of medicine production are: clinical trials and bringing them to market, which together take several years, if not decades. A majority of this time is taken up by testing. In fact, each drug on the shelf costs £60 billion to produce, taking all research and preceding failed drugs into account.