The US National Cancer Institute’s natural products repository; origins and utility

Abstract

The US National Cancer Institute’s natural products collection program has been running since 1986 and over the years the materials collected and processed have been stored in a repository that as a result of initial planning, has permitted the establishment of a national resource that is now being utilized as a drug discovery tool for any disease of interest to the NIH by researchers world-wide. This paper describes the history of the program.