When Nature Because Medicine: The Quest for Cures in the Early Modern World is a history of bioprospecting, natural product extraction, and the creation of the global pharmaceutical industry. Through archival research in Italy, Spain, and the Americas, along with interviews with biochemists, pharmacists, and pharmaceutical companies, I show how the history of organic chemistry is irrevocably tied to the extractive politics of overseas empire in the early modern period.

This is a work in progress.