Pharmacognosy is the study of medicines derived from natural sources and BIOL 4385 will expose students to the strategies and techniques employed in the natural product drug discovery process. This course follows BIOL 3385 Advanced Microbiology, where students continue to experience isolation of microbes from plant and animal host tissues and determine the potential existence of bioactive natural products. Techniques include: aseptic technique, microbial culture maintenance and storage, fermentation, liquid-liquid partition, bioassay-directed fractionation, NMR and PCR determination of chemical structures and microbial identity respectively.