The Natural Products Discovery Institute was established in June 2011 as a result of an unprecedented gift by Merck and Company of its entire U.S. Natural Products Library and the Schering-Plough Legacy Culture Collection to the Hepatitis B Foundation’s research affiliate, the Baruch S. Blumberg Institute. The Blumberg Institute is a Non-Profit 501(3c) Organization that is seeking donors to support the mining of this valuable collection for medical uses of interest to donors. Together, this is one of the largest, most diverse, and most carefully developed natural products collections in the world.
The mission of the Natural Products Discovery Institute is to:
- Maintain and develop its collection of natural products for human benefit, including discovery of human and animal therapeutics, nutritionals, cosmeceuticals, and research and production tools
- Make its collection of natural products available to qualified researchers worldwide
- Provide industry standard follow-up chemistry to support bioassay driven structure identification and elucidation
- Teach others about therapeutic drug discovery and natural products
- Advance the goals of the Hepatitis B Foundation and its research organization, the Blumberg Institute