Discovery of Natural Products with Anti-Microbial Activity against Animal Diseases

Dear Colleagues,

Emerging diseases in animals, both wildlife and those in production, pose a severe global economic threat, and zoonotic diseases in particular can reach pandemic levels in the human population. To meet these challenges, a focus on drug discovery in natural products is required to ensure both therapeutic and economic viability of large-scale treatment programs in animals. Of equal importance is the search for alternatives to the use of antibiotics in food animals to alleviate the increasing threat of antibacterial resistance and its potential to spread to humans. The use of natural products to treat animal disease has been described for many years and is an important part of the traditional medicine of many countries. Recently, a greater understanding as to how these treatments work at the molecular and cellular level has led to the refinement of targets and active components of natural product extracts. High-throughput technologies involving genomics, proteomics, and metabolomics have allowed large-scale screening for activity, and together with advanced in vitro assessment in 3D cell culture or organoid models, have improved the efficiency of drug discovery from natural products.

This Special Issue will include original research articles, reviews, and methodological advances on the broad antimicrobial (antibacterial, antiviral, antifungal) activity of natural products, including herbal medicines and botanicals, with a particular focus on the treatment of diseases in animals or activity against zoonotic diseases.

Dr. Pádraig Michael Strappe
Dr. Dong-Seon Kim
Guest Editors

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• antimicrobial
• natural products
• animal disease
• zoonosis