ABSTRACT: There is mounting urgency to find new drugs for the treatment of serious infectious diseases and cancer that are
rapidly developing resistance to previously effective drugs. One approach to addressing this need is through drug repurposing,
which refers to the discovery of new useful activities for “old” clinically used drugs through screening them against relevant
disease targets. A large number of potential drug that, for various reasons, have failed to advance to clinical and commercial use
can be added to the candidates available for such purposes. The application of new techniques and methodology developed
through the impressive progress made in multidisciplinary, natural product-related research in recent years should aid
substantially in expediting the discovery and development process. This review briefly outlines some of these developments as
applied to a number of selected natural product examples, which may also include advances in chemical synthesis of derivatives
with extended biological activities.