This is the second volume since the reintroduction of the Recent Advances in Phytochemistry (RAP) series, an annual journal supported by the Phytochemical Society of North America. Topics appropriate for RAP include the biosynthesis of natural products and regulation of metabolism, the ecology of specialized metabolites and the evolution of their pathways, and the effects of natural products or plants on human health. Research appropriate for RAP involves genomics, proteomics, metabolomics, natural product structural determination and new technology development, medicinal chemistry and...

This 43rd volume of RAP includes a total of seven articles based on talks presented at the 50th Anniversary meeting of the PSNA, which was held at the Fairmont Orchid, in Waikoloa, Hawai'i, USA. These seven Perspectives give a very good picture of the breadth of plant (bio)chemistry research in North America, which is also indicative of the state of the field worldwide. Each of these articles describes the integration of several different approaches to ask and then answer interesting questions regarding the function of interesting plant metabolites, either in the plant itself or in...