Photo - of - by Joseph McClain | March 3, 2021
Pyrola media is a woodland plant, native to Europe. It produces 2-methyl-1,4-benzoquinone, a molecule that shows promise as a therapeutic, but it doesn’t produce very much of it. Dana Lashley says it’s a common phenomenon.
“Often, the most interesting of these naturally occurring molecules called natural products are only produced as secondary metabolites, which means a plant could generate a really interesting-looking organic structure, but it only makes a small amount of it,” she explained. “So we really don t have enough to be able to do all the biological testing and see if the molecule could be therapeutically useful as a treatment for one disease or another.”