Pharmacognosy

Plant root, leaf, stem, flower, animal, or plant extract may be used to isolate bioactive chemicals. Plant preparations used for health purposes rather than just for nutritional supplementations or flavouring to food is considered to be medicinal preparation and include things such as salicylic acid, caffeine, and some chemotherapeutic, inotropic and anti-gout agents. About a quarter of all prescriptions within the USA have at least one or more bioactive compounds derived from plants.

Pharmacognosy is used to screen, characterize and produce new drugs for treatment of human disease. Naturally occuring drugs often can’t be mass produced so they need to be studied to develop new synthetic biosimilar compounds. Synthetically producing compounds allows modifications to be made to increase bioavailability and increased efficacy. Modifications can transform crude inactive plant extracts into powerful compounds that could provide excellent models to create novel drugs, such as some anticancer drugs.

Botanical knowledge is included in pharmacognosy to classify and name plants, understand genetic patterns and cultivation; chemical knowledge to identify, isolate, and quantitatively assess bioactive compounds in plant sources; as well as pharmacology to evaluate biological properties and effects on living systems. A working knowledge of quality control is also needed to ensure correct identification and purity of drugs, and accurate analysis of safety and efficacy.

Pharmacognosy was traditionally recognized as an important part of drug development and education, but has begun to be neglected in the advent of new drugs which can be synthesized. Scientists are starting to recognize once more that indigenous knowledge of medicinal value to plants should not be lost as it still holds great insight into development of new drugs, such as artemisinin from the ginghaosu tree that is recognized as ancient Chinese drug for malaria. Respect for ancient wisdom is reflected in pharmacognosy, use of plant products to treat illness is well known in many Eastern countries where billions of dollars are spent on pharmacognosy research to identify, produce, and market natural medicinal drugs which are being more frequently being sought after in more health conscious Western society.

Importance of medicinal plants should never be forgotten and should be studied for treatment of currently untreatable and life threatening diseases such as HIV, malaria, chronic pain, and Alzheimer’s disease.