How I found 71 natural alternatives to a $200 million drug

A step-by-step drug discovery and AI virtual screening project done from my laptop

By Author | Not random images either, there’s a chance you find the compounds in all of these organisms.

Flavonoids are a large, diverse group of secondary plant metabolites that play a role in pigmentation, UV protection, and insecticidal activity. Specifically, some anthocyanins (a subclass) can inhibit insect digestive enzymes, preventing nutrient uptake and development, serving as a defence mechanism against predators.

Obviously, there’s potential here for bug Ozempic (or insecticides, you pick). But research on Allium mongolicum flowers has also revealed that their flavonoids may inhibit human digestive enzymes, including our very own starch-metabolizing α-glucosidase. These compounds could be used to treat diabetes, as inhibiting starch breakdown reduces postprandial blood glucose levels (Li et al., 2025).

Initial docking analysis revealed that A. mongolicum-derived isoquercetin (already in clinical trials) can inhibit α-glucosidase (AGI) activity with an effect similar to that of acarbose, a common AGI derived from Actinoplanes bacteria. Chemical similarity search revealed that troxerutin (aka vitamin P4, a flavonoid you can buy over the counter) shares some substructural motifs with isoquercetin, and its docking analysis showed similar binding affinity.