ABSTRACT
I.6 Individualized Medicine and Concluding Remarks ............................................................. 13 Further Readings .............................................................................................................................. 13
Therapeutic agents are chemicals that prevent disease, assist in restoring health to the diseased, or alleviate symptoms associated with disease conditions. Medicinal chemistry is the scienti c discipline that makes such drugs available through either discovery or design processes. Throughout history, drugs were primarily discovered by empirical methods, investigating substances or preparations of materials found in the local environment. Over the previous centuries, chemists developed methods and techniques for the isolation and puri cation of the active principles in medicinal plants. The puri cation and structure determination of natural products like morphine, hyoscyamine, quinine, and digitalis glycosides represent milestones in the eld of drug discovery and the beginning of medicinal chemistry as a fascinating independent eld of research (Figure I.1).
