Safety Evaluation of Natural Products in Biotechnology

"The introduction of biotechnology in every aspect of natural products research, has dramatically facilitated the potential applications by the industry today. Natural dyes, alternative food ingredients and preservation materials and microbial polysaccharides, are only some examples of the growing use of natural products in the industry. Importantly, the pharmaceutical sector is actively involved in natural products research, since a large number of novel compounds have medicinal value. Although natural products has the chemical diversity and has been proven to be useful templates, their sustainable supply from the original biological source always remain a problem. Biotechnology is expected to play a major role in the production of natural products through biosynthesis and bioengineering which will further reduce the dependence on a large amount of plant samples and hence reduce the pressure of reducing the number of biogenetic resources in the tropical forests. This book describes the importance of biotechnology in the search for natural products from plants and other sources. It aims to provide readers with a comprehensive information which will help them to successfully address current research and application issues in natural products and biotechnology."