Pharmaceutical giant Merck has donated its 100,000-plus-item collection of organisms to a new research center in Buckingham for sources of naturally derived medicines and fuels, the Bucks County Courier Times and Doylestown Intelligencer report.
Merck had collected the samples as part of its own natural products library, which is regarded as one of the best curated collections of research-ready compounds made from living organisms in the world.
Like penicillin, which was developed from mold, nearly half of the medications on the market today were derived from natural products. But pharmaceutical researchers lately are turning more to synthetic compounds, which are cheaper, easier and faster to use.
Original source: Bucks County Courier Times / Doylestown Intelligencer
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