The work carried out by the “Chemistry of Natural Substances – Pharmacognosy” laboratory focuses on biologically active natural substances, mainly for anti-cancer or anti-parasitic purposes, and their analogues obtained by total synthesis or hemisynthesis. The study of the biological activities of these molecules and their structure-activity relationships has been particularly developed in recent years, recently supplemented by the analysis of their mechanisms of action. The isolation of new natural products, mainly of plant origin, has led to a better biochemical understanding of the families and genera studied, making it possible to propose coherent biogenetic schemes and establish chemotaxonomic relationships useful for the discovery of new biologically active substances. In addition to the development of new methods, synthesis and hemisynthesis work has provided access to numerous molecules analogous to active natural products and enabled the development of research programs investigating the relationship between the structure of these products and their activity. All of this work is closely intertwined and associated with the use of new techniques for structural analysis and separation of these natural or synthetic products. The large number of new molecules obtained through these various approaches has led us to actively participate in the implementation of one of the nationally federated chemical libraries that will enable new large-scale biological tests to be carried out.

Numerous national and international collaborations have been developed in these different fields, mainly with the IRD, INSERM teams, and biology laboratories at various universities.