Is today a good moment to study traditional, small molecules-oriented

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This board is not for figuring out your career path. It says so right up there in the sticky.

If you can't read, or don't understand simple English sentences, then your IQ is not enough to study chemistry.

>>9082820
All the (patentable and profitable, non-self-market-destroying) low hanging fruit have been plucked. There's still a decent amount to be done, but it's a diminishing field.

And besides, I've become relatively convinced nature, after a massive number of iterations, has already traced out the solutions to most of our problems. We just refuse to use them. Take carvacrol, from oregano, thyme, etc. Potent antibiotic, eliminates even the most resistant MRSA strains, and many don't seem to have the means or machinery to develop any effective resistance. There is a reason oregano resists pests, bacterial colonization, and fungal growth. Carvacrol significantly improves post stroke outcomes via acting as a potent ROS scavenger, and mild VGCC blocker. Etc. Many other culinary herbs have similar active monoterpenes as well. Wormwood's history and ability to treat malaria and parasite infestation is well known. Mucuna pruiens used in place of L-DOPA alone for parkinsons not only works better, but does not produce tardive dyskinesia. Likely because it's full of gluthionine and some other shit.

List goes on and on. Plants are not magic. They require a means to exist and survive, like any other organism. They're composed of, and target, the same low level machinery we do. And they get results. Comparatively with synthetic drug design, we don't. We get side effects and variable outcomes.

>>9082844
We don't just "refuse" to use them.
Pharma companies are under so much financial pressure they'd do everything to develop any viable drug, and if drugs from plants aren't used that much it's for good reasons.

Oh and for the synthetic causing side effects I'd argue the opposite : we can create synthetic drugs and refine them to enhance them and make them behave exactly how we want. The plant based drug however won't go through this process, and if it is "naturally engineered" it's not in order to be an effective and safe drug for human use.
Plus I'd think that in practice it's the opposite. How many synthetic cardiac drugs have side effects as big as digoxin ? Why would most people rather get high on LSD, MDMA or adderall instead of datura, salvia or LSA ?

>>9082975
>and if drugs from plants aren't used that much it's for good reasons.
The reason is generally ignorance and irrationality. Consult the literature. Genetic engineering could be used to cheaply produce these compounds in massive quantities.

>we can create synthetic drugs and refine them to enhance them and make them behave exactly how we want
This implies infinite possibility in a finite system, which obviously doesn't work. The body is one intertwined whole, only finite compounds and preparations thereof can exist, and generally, naturally derived compounds are far better tolerated simply because they are naturally derived, and the manner with which life is slave to the underlying of the universe, just like everything else, produces clustering demands and potential processing methods in the body. The worst thing carvacrol will do to you is cause skin irritation, mildly inhibit MAOs, and antagonize GABA-A causing a degree of unrest. Compare that to antibiotics that trash your system and leave lasting tinnitus etc, or at the worst, steven-johnson syndrome.

>and if it is "naturally engineered" it's not in order to be an effective and safe drug for human use.
This was already addressed above and the premise it's based on is false, but I'll go into it a bit more. If it is safe for consumption, and the plant itself can safely generate and encapsulate it, chances are, we can handle it fine. We use most of the same low level machinery, many of the same signalling pathways, and have very clean and efficient metabolism / excretion of naturally derived compounds.

>How many synthetic cardiac drugs have side effects as big as digoxin ?
I'm not saying plants are universally safe and can be used mindlessly, I'm saying they're an ignored frontier. Also, how many synthetic drugs are as protective against myocardial hypoxia induced apoptosis as magnolia bark or carvacrol? 0.

>>9082975
>Why would most people rather get high on LSD, MDMA or adderall instead of datura, salvia or LSA ?
Because engineering is a thing. It's just not magic or infinite, and has limitations. Just like the rest of nature.

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>>9083002
Still, there's never going to be a bird that can fly as fast as pic related, carry as much load or see so well, because nature can't invent turbofans, aviation-grade aluminium and composite materials or AESA cued targeting pods.

>>9083029
-Shrug-
True, but doesn't really matter. Mechanical limitation of the underlying system. Of course mitochondria, a bunch of ions, and some aqueous solution of other stuff doesn't have the means to function in that way. Just as my legs don't have the means to jump 40 feet in the air. There exists a mechanical upper bound. And if you try to exceed it, you'll find eventually the universe's rules will impose a hard upper bound for a given system type. Example being structures that will crumble on Earth, but can exist in space. Or organisms that require a certain concentration of oxygen relative to their lung capacity, O2 transfer and trafficking characteristics, and whole body metabolic demand. Hard upper bound.

Finite possibility. Starry eyed "we can can make it do anything, and be any way!" does not reflect reality.

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>>9083029
useless

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>>9083072
>comparing a plane that first flew in 1974 to a plane that first flew in 1994
You should be comparing the Typhoon to pic related.

>>9083083
>f22
>scamazz
>jews inc

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>>9083029
Prepare for endings life, xaxaxaxa!

>>9083089
>implying it isn't the most capable fighter aircraft ever built

>>9083111
>wanna be stealth
>wanna be pussy

>>9083111
F-22s are F-35s now?

>>9082820
You and that guy are about to get blown the fuck out. :D