The search for new therapeutic agents is a great scientific challenge for synthetic organic chemists. Natural products, their derivatives, and their analogues are among the most important sources of tool compounds and drug candidates for chemical biology and medicinal chemistry research respectively. In this talk, development of nature-inspired small molecules and their applications in biological/medicinal research will be discussed. Case studies ranging from biologically active indole derivatives, to carbohydrate-based cancer therapeutics and recent advances in clinically approved peptides will be presented.