Issue 4 of NPR is now available, containing a Highlight article, five reviews and the latest Hot off the Press article - our bi-monthly digest of recent natural products research. 

In this issue's Highlight article, Mark Searcey (University of East Anglia, UK), Dale Boger (The Scripps Research Institute, US) and colleagues review studies into the isolation, total synthesis and structure elucidation of chlorofusin. This complex fungal metabolite inhibits a key protein-protein interaction and may prove a promising lead for anti-cancer therapeutics. 

The outside cover (above) shows alpha-conotoxins surrounded by the shells of some of the cone snails in which they are found. Individual conotoxins - small disulfide-rich peptides derived from venomous marine cone snails - have the ability to discriminate between different subtypes and isoforms of ion channels, making them valuable pharmacological probes or leads for drug design. In this review, Reena Halai and David Craik (University of Queensland, Australia) give a brief background to the discovery of conotoxins and describe their sequences, biological activities and applications in drug design.