From freezing arctic wastes to twilit ocean depths to steamy rainforests, ann exploration of the frontiers of the search for new medicines.

Moving beyond the Amazon rainforests of his classic book, Tales of a Shaman's Apprentice, Mark Plotkin describes the ongoing race to find new medicines for intractable diseases such as AIDS, cancer diabetes, and tuberculosis. He discusses how the unlikely combination of natural products, indigenous wisdom, and biotechnology has brought stunning results: painkillers from the skin of rainforest frogs, anticoagulants from leech saliva, and antitumor agents from snake venom. An entertaining and educational weaving of medicine, ecology, ethnobotany, history, exploration, and adventure, Medicine Quest will thrill scientists, naturalists, and armchair explorers and heighten our appreciation for the inexhaustible therapeutic potential of our natural world.