From natural substance to medicine – forschung.de

It is possible that the ingredients in birch porridge helped Ötzi fight intestinal parasites.
© TwilightArtPictures/stock.adobe.com

Peter Proksch, Professor Emeritus of Pharmaceutical Biology at the University of Düsseldorf, develops new medicines from natural materials.
© Hans Jürgen Bauer

Assistant pharmacist Friedrich Sertörner isolated morphine from the sap of the opium plant in Paderborn in 1804.
©INTERFOTO/Smoke Collection

The dried milky sap of the opium plant (opium poppy) is a sticky, sticky mass.
©Daniel Brodick/stock.adobe.com

Morphine is a crystalline substance that can be incorporated into injection solutions.
©Hans Group/CC-BY-SA-4.0

Historic advertising vehicle for aspirin in the Netherlands
© Bayer

Aspirin tubes and tablets from the 1930s.
©Superpass/CC BY-SA 4.0

Salicylic acid extracted from willow bark was the first substance that chemists modified synthetically. The more tolerable acetylsalicylic acid (pictured) has since become an ingredient in aspirin.
©David McCarthy/Science Image Library

Anyone who removes the bark from the Pacific yew kills the entire plant. Therefore, the discovery of paclitaxel present in it threatens the shrub.
©History of Science Pictures/Alamy Stock Photo

The active ingredient paclitaxel inhibits cell division (pink color in fluorescence microscope image) in breast and ovarian cancer.
©Juan F. Jimenez Appian/Scientific Image Library

Ivy before and after crushing
©Bionorica SE/Gerhard Berger

In the production hall of Bionorica, a German herbal medicine manufacturer, an employee extracts active ingredients from plant materials.
©Bionorica SE/Stefan Hanke