The NHC Key Laboratory of Biosynthesis of Natural Products was founded in 1985 with the mission to provide a foundation for conducting top-class scientific research and cultivating creative talents in the field of biosynthesis. The research goal is to resolve the bottlenecks that hamper the production of natural medicines and to expand the source of natural medicines. The Laboratory currently has 42 staff members including 10 Ph. D. supervisors and 6 M.Sc. supervisors. The main research interests include: 1) Biosynthesis and synthetic biology of natural medicines; 2) Discovery of new bioactive substances and investigation of innovative drugs. The laboratory has made remarkable progress in biosynthesis and synthetic biology of Taxol and unnatural ginsenosides; discovery and mechanistic elucidation of new glycosylhydrolases, glycosyltransferases and prenyltransferases as well as their application; the biosynthetic gene mining and pathway deciphering of fungal secondary metabolites. Representative research achievements include authorization of dozens of patents in China and foreign countries and considerable publications in world’s top peer-reviewed journals likeNature Chemistry,Nature Chemical Biology,Nature Communications,Angewandte Chemie International Edition,Journal of the American Chemical Society,ACS Catalysis,Green Chemistry,Acta Pharmaceutica Sinica BandMetabolic Engineering. Besides, the new hypolipidemic drug, designated as IMM-H007, which was developed based on the AMPK agonistic function of cordycepin, is currently at clinical study stage after completion of the pre-clinical study and technology transfer. Additionally, the already marketed new TCM product Jin Shui Bao Capsule, which is prepared from fermentedPaecilomyces hepiali(strain Cs-4) isolated from theOphiocordyceps sinensis(Dong Chong Xia Cao in Chinese), has reached annual sales of over RMB 6 billion.
