TECHNOLOGY FOCUS - BIOLOGY - Preferred Components: The natural substance (s) are component(s) of plants in the family simaroubaceae. (I) is quassin and/or neoquassin.    TECHNOLOGY FOCUS - ORGANIC CHEMISTRY - Preferred Process: The process of separating mother liquor comprises: loading mother liquor on to a column comprising silica, where the silica to residue ratio is 17:1. The process comprises: mixing the natural substance(s) in an ultrasonic bath with a water/alcohol mixture for about twenty-four hours; evaporating alcohol from the water/alcohol mixture to give an aqueous phase, and washing the aqueous phase with a first solvent to give a first solvent fraction and an aqueous fraction; saturating the aqueous fraction with a polarity increasing means and extracting with ethyl acetate to give a residue; adding a second solvent to the residue; adding charcoal (2.5-5%) and stirring to give an at least partially decolorized mixture; filtering the at least partially decolorized mixture and evaporating the second solvent to give a second residue; adding a third solvent to the second residue and seeding with crystals of the at least one quassinoid to form a seeded solution; and allowing the seeded solution to crystallize. The crystallization occurs through evaporation of the third solvent. The aqueous dispersion of the quassinoid extract is prepared by extracting the natural source of the quassinoid material with a solvent for the quassinoid material, subsequently removing the solvent to give a solid quassinoid extract, and dispersing the solid quassinoid extract in water, where the solvent comprising a mixed solvent having water and a water-miscible organic solvent to give a dispersion of the quassinoid composition in the mixed solvent, and subsequently removing the water-miscible organic solvent from the dispersion to give the aqueous dispersion of the quassinoid extract. The volatile organic solvent is removed from the mixed solvent by evaporation.The process comprises: providing an aqueous dispersion of the quassinoid containing extract; extracting nonpolar contaminants from the aqueous dispersion with a nonpolar, water-immiscible solvent to give an aqueous phase containing a quassinoid material; establishing an increased polarity in the aqueous phase by dissolving a non-toxic neutral salt; extracting the quassinoid material from the aqueous phase with a water-immiscible organic solvent for the quassinoid material to give an organic phase containing the quassinoid material substantially devoid of polar contaminants. The method further comprises: crystallizing the quassinoid compound from the organic phase; removing the water-immiscible organic solvent from the organic phase to give a residue containing the quassinoid material; dissolving the residue in a solvent for the quassinoid material of lower aliphatic alcohols to give a solution of the quassinoid material in the solvent; decolorizing the solution of quassinoid material with decolorizing charcoal to give a solution of decolorized quassinoid material; removing the decolorizing charcoal from the solution of the decolorized quassinoid material; removing the solvent from the solution of the decolorized quassinoid material to yield a residue comprising the decolorized quassinoid material; and crystallizing the residue to give a substantially crystalline quassinoid material. The crystallizing step is conducted by evaporating the organic solvent from the organic phase to give a residue containing the quassinoid; and crystallizing the residue to give crystalline quassinoid. The step of crystallizing the residue to give crystalline quassinoid comprises dissolving the decolorized quassinoid material in a solvent of lower aliphatic alcohols to give a solution of the quassinoid material in the solvent; seeding the solution of quassinoid material with crystals of a quassinoid compound; allowing the solvent to evaporate from the seeded solution at room temperature to give a solid quassinoid composition containing quassinoid material.The process comprises extracting nonpolar contaminants from a dispersion of the extract in a first solvent, with a second solvent, where the second solvent is immiscible in the first solvent and the second solvent has a lower polarity than the first solvent to give a first phase containing a quassinoid material; adding a polarity increasing means to the first phase to give a second phase having a polarity greater than the first phase; extracting the second phase with a water immiscible organic solvent to give a second residue; and subjecting the second residue to crystallization to give crystalline (I). The process of crystallizing the residue to yield crystalline quassinoid comprises recovering additional quassinoid from the mother liquor by separating the quassinoid from the mother liquor by column chromatography. The step of recovering additional quassinoid from the mother liquor comprises: evaporating solvent from the mother liquor to give a residue; dissolving the residue in a lower aliphatic alcohol solvent to give a solution of the residue; applying the solution to a silica gel chromatographic column to provide a ratio of the silica gel to the residue contained in the solution of 15:1-20:1 (preferably 17), by weight; eluting nonpolar impurities with a first eluting solvent which is a pure nonpolar organic eluting solvent; subsequently eluting the quassinoid with a second pure organic eluting solvent of greater polarity than the first organic eluting solvent; crystallizing the quassinoid from the second organic eluting solvent.Preferred Components: The first and third solvent is ethanol, and the second solvent is hexane. The polarity increasing means is sodium chloride. The water-miscible organic solvent is a volatile organic solvent, preferably ethanol. ACTIVITY - Antimalarial; Insecticide; Cytostatic; Virucide; Amoebicide.    .    MECHANISM OF ACTION - None given.