Cancer is a major public health problem and the second leading cause of
premature deaths worldwide, accounting for an incident rate of 2.6 million cases per
year, mainly in Europe and the United States. This book chapter describes the historical
aspect of cancer, its treatment modalities and history of natural compounds being used
as anti-cancer agents. Role of marine natural compounds and their derivatives in cancer
prevention, like, alkaloids, amine derivatives, macrolides, peptides and polypeptides
are described in this chapter. Both, role of natural compounds extracted from plants and
microbial sources are discussed along with their molecular targets and interactions to
kill the cancer cells. Most of the medicinal compounds derived naturally are
synthesized semi-synthetically for commercial purposes. They are then formulated into
proper dosage increasing their costs. But for many natural compounds clinical trials are
still to be carried out to validate their use in cancer therapy.
Keywords: Anti-cancer, Cancer therapy, Marine, Microbial, Nutraceuticals,
Natural compounds, Plants.
