The Hidden Chemistry of Plants: How Nature’s Survival Strategies Became Our Medicine
Would you believe me if I told you that the flowers in your window and the trees in your yard are actually sophisticated chemical laboratories, producing compounds that could cure disease?
Plants can’t run from predators or hide from harsh weather. So over 450 million years of evolution, they developed something better: chemistry. To survive, plants engineered intricate metabolic systems that produce thousands of specialized chemicals that attract pollinators, poison herbivores, and fight off pathogens. Some of these same compounds, it turns out, can heal us.
Aspirin came from willow bark. Morphine from the opium poppy. Taxol, a cornerstone cancer drug, from the Pacific yew tree. Today, a significant portion of prescription drugs are either derived directly from plants or inspired by their molecular structures. But we’ve barely scratched the surface of what the plant kingdom has to offer.
My guest is Jing-Ke Weng, PhD, a biochemist and plant biologist who studies the origin and evolution of specialized metabolism in plants. His goal is to map the vast chemical diversity of the plant kingdom and translate it into new medicines for complex human diseases. Last fall, Dr. Weng left MIT’s Whitehead Institute—where we first met in 2013 when I worked as a science writer—to become the founding director of the Institute for Plant-Human Interface at Northeastern University.
This conversation extends beyond just plants. It’s about how science is actually done, how scientists think, and why understanding the evolutionary pressures that shaped plant chemistry might unlock treatments we haven’t yet imagined. Jing-Ke also shares how Traditional Chinese Medicine—which has used plant-based remedies for thousands of years—influenced his early life and continues to inform his research today.
In this episode, we discuss:
• Why plants are nature’s master chemists and what forced them to evolve that way
• How natural compounds in plants defend against threats and sustain vital processes
• The hidden plant origins of common prescription drugs like aspirin, morphine, and Taxol
• What Traditional Chinese Medicine reveals about complex herbal formulations
• How Dr. Weng’s research maps chemical diversity across the plant kingdom
• Why studying plant evolution could lead to breakthrough medicines for human disease
• What it means to bridge ancient herbal wisdom with modern molecular biology
• How science is really done. and how scientists approach unsolved problems
🎧 Listen to the full episode: https://www.podpage.com/curiously/elixirs-of-nature-exploring-the-plant-kingdom-for-new-medicines/
💡 Learn more about Dr. Weng’s work: https://wenglab.net/
💡 About Curiously: https://www.podpage.com/curiously/about/