In a new golden age, polyketides are investigated and manipulated with the
tools of molecular biology and genetics; hybrid polyketides can be produced
. Pharmaceutical companies hope to find new and useful polyketide products,
including antibiotics, anthelminthics, and immunosuppressants. This review
describes the past developments (largely chemical) on which the present in
vestigations are based, attempts to make sense of the expanding scope of po
lyketides, looks at the shifting research focus around polyketides, present
s a working definition in biosynthetic terms, and takes note of recent work
in combinatorial biosynthesis. Also discussed is the failure of the classi
cal enzymological approach to polyketide biosynthesis.