Plants as source for medicines: new perspectives

Authors

  • R. Verpoorte
  • H.K. Kim
  • Y.H. Choi

Abstract

An enormous variety of medicinal plants are used worldwide by about 80% of the world population, although in most cases no scientific studies have been done to prove the efficacy of these medicinal plants. Considering that most present-day western medicines are based on the traditional medicinal plants of European, Mediterranean and Arabic origin, the variety of plants in use around the world may very well represent an enormous treasure for drug development. To develop evidence-based medicinal plants and novel active compounds from this very important heritage, the present-day reductionist approach of drug development of ‘a single compound for a single target’ will probably not develop this resource to its full potential. Instead, holistic approaches, such as clinical trials and systems biology, need to be employed, as in many cases activity might be due to pro-drugs which are activated in the body after administration of the medicine or to synergy among compounds. Metabolomics, proteomics and transcriptomics will be important tools for such holistic approaches, requiring proper statistical methods to deal with the large data sets

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Published

2006-11-01