生物毒素是一类具有重要意义的生物源化学物质，已知化学结构的毒素可达数千种。生物毒素表现出生源、化学结构、作用机制等多方面的多样性。生物毒素研究已发展成为与多种学科交叉的新学科——毒素学，其发展对于生命化学、生源合成化学、化学生物学、化学生态学、医学、药物学、环境科学均有重要意义，对药物创新研究更具积极作用。许多生物毒素可作为临床药物或导向化合物，并可为药物分子设计提供有价值的新药效模型和结构构架，更能为发现药物新作用靶位发挥特殊作用。

Toxins are biogenic chemical substances with meaningful value. They display plentiful diversities in many aspects such as biogenity, chemical structure, biological activity, etc. Toxinology, a novel disciplinary subject , develops rapidly in recent decades, the advances in which are pushing effect on chemical biology, chemical ecology, biogenic syntheses, life science, environment science and medicine. It is noteworthy that the toxin research gives impetus to drug discovery. Numerous useful clinical medicines are natural toxins or them derivatives. Meanwhile, the information from toxin researches could provide valuable pharmacophoric pattern and structure motif for drug design. Furthermore, toxins are outstanding toos to explain and to search new target site of drugs.