Natural product to modern discovery of their active ingredients and eventually to the development of new drugs. A large number of currently prescribed drugs have been either directly derived from or inspired by natural products. A few representative examples are listed below. Some of the oldest natural product based drugs are analgesics. The bark of the willow tree has been known from antiquity to have pain relieving properties. This is due to presence of the natural product salicin which in turn may be hydrolyzed into salicylic acid. A synthetic derivative acetylsalicylic acid better known as aspirin is a widely used pain reliever.
Willow (Dreadstar) Willow (Dreadstar) Willow is a fictional character in the comics space opera "Dreadstar", created by American artist Jim Starlin. She was introduced in the first issue of Dreadstar's regular series and had her origin told in issue 2. Willow is a cybernetic telepath, a rare kind of telepath who has the ability of sensing and commanding computers and robotic devices as well as sentient minds. She used a "seeing-eye monk" named Rainbow as her eyes as she could telepathically see what the monkey saw. As first seen in "Dreadstar" #1, Willow was part of a team informally known as "Dreadstar