# Natural-product discovery

The article proposes a framework for natural product drug discovery that translates evidence into auditable experimental actions through a four-tier architecture (source authentication, reproducible chemical fingerprinting, orthogonal prioritization, definitive characterization) with documented decision gates, and an 'evidence ladder' that separates molecular-identification confidence from chemical novelty, biological novelty and translational relevance, addressing three recurring gaps: incomplete integration of sample metadata, conflation of analytical detection with molecular novelty, and lack of explicit decision thresholds.

The article proposes a framework for natural product drug discovery that translates evidence into auditable experimental actions through a four-tier architecture (source authentication, reproducible chemical fingerprinting, orthogonal prioritization, definitive characterization) with documented decision gates, and an 'evidence ladder' that separates molecular-identification confidence from chemical novelty, biological novelty and translational relevance, addressing three recurring gaps: incomplete integration of sample metadata, conflation of analytical detection with molecular novelty, and lack of explicit decision thresholds.