We used ATF3-specific promoter-screening approaches to explore ATF3 inducers from a modified Chinese herb single-compound library and uncovered a single compound, ST32da, a synthetic compound related to neo-tanshinlactone and isolated from Salvia miltiorrhiza, that showed good anti-obesity effects in mice with HFD-induced obesity. The gene discussed is ATF3; the disease is obesity due to melanocortin 4 receptor deficiency.