In its present form, the field of Natural Products Chemistry not only encompasses the more traditional disciplines of isolation, total synthesis, and methods development, but it also has expanded into medicinal chemistry, chemical biology, and molecular biology. It was with the diversity of the field in mind that the 53rd Natural Products Gordon Research Conference was organized. As we hope you can see from the schedule, individuals who are among the leaders in their respective disciplines have agreed to present lectures at this year's conference. The topics of these lectures will literally span the rather broad scope of this discipline. In addition to the invited lectures, the normal afternoon and evening poster sessions will be held. The poster sessions are important to the success of the meeting and are a fantastic forum to receive feedback on your latest results. In addition to all of this, a few of the posters will be chosen to give short talks at the meeting.