How far can one go in the field of structural elucidation of natural products?

Structural elucidation of bioactive compounds has always been and remains a field of interest for organic chemists. Tools have constantly evolved over the past fifty years and the field has become so sophisticated and relies so heavily on instruments and computers that is becoming an area for specialists. Specialization has become such that the natural product chemist now faces X-ray professionals, mass spectrometry specialists, not to speak of NMR experts; all these people use different tools, different quantities of material and it may happen that once our natural product chemists opens the door of one of their laboratories, he is not welcome in the others anymore. The purpose of this paper is to discuss briefly what can be done best with each of the tools. It will be also shown that chemistry may still find a use, especially when problems are very difficult to tackle. Examples will be chosen among terpenes, antibiotics and toxins.