Natural products in the plant and animal kingdom offer a huge diversity of chemical structures that are the result of biosynthetic processes that have been modulated over the millennia through genetic effects. With the rapid developments in spectroscopic techniques and accompanying advances in high-throughput screening techniques, it has become possible to isolate then determine the structures and biological activity of natural products rapidly, thus opening up exciting new opportunities in the field of new drug development to the pharmaceutical industry. The series also covers the synthesis or testing and recording of the medicinal properties of natural products. The first 20 volumes of Studies in Natural Products Chemistry brought together information from diverse fields of the physical and biomedical sciences. Each volume had a central theme as a link for the various contributed chapters written by organic chemists. From Volume 21 onward, the series has been devoted to bioactive natural products. Volume 38 contains a number of interesting articles covering a diversity of natural products with applications such as herbicides, biomedical compounds, cancer chemoprevention targets, and modulating biofilm production.