Natural products: A continuing source of novel drug leads

► We have given a history of natural products as drugs. ► We have discussed the reasons for the decreased interest in NPs in the Pharmaceutical industry. ► We have shown that the use of genomic techniques has allowed the recognition of new microbial sources of structures ► We demonstrate that the new frontier will be the interplay of genomics, chemistry and controlled biosynthesis. ► We demonstrate that biodiversity is in the microbial realm.