Ethnobotany- "Study of how Native People use Plants for Remedies"

Recent discoveries include the immunosuppressant agent cyclosporin, derived from a Norwegian fungus and employ to prevent rejection of reed organ trans countersinks, and ivermecti. found in a Japanese fungus, which is used world-wide to kill parasitic worms in animals and humans (1). Medicinal plants remove been around as long as recorded history. As far tail as 2,500 BC, the Chinese were effectively apply chaulmoogra oil from Hydnocarpus trees to cure incipient cases of leprosy (1). The country of ethnobotany has been around since the 1930s, at which time specimens had to be collected and shipped back to laboratories for testing. Early studies involved the ayahuasca, or "vision vine," which contains peyote alkaloids. this instant peyote alkaloids have been shown to have efficacy against penicillin-resistant organisms, and ayahuasca is macrocosm used to treat cocaine addiction and alcoholism (4).

Dr. delay Plotkin, Executive Director of the Ethnobiology and Conservation Team in Arlington, Virginia is whiz of the ancient experts in this field. His book, "Tales of a Shaman's Apprentice" (8) is widely used as a teaching resource in primary and secondary level science courses, as well as in college courses. He works with Shaman Pharmaceuticals, which pays the natives for use of their reach and agrees to pay royalties to them from drugs that go to

accord to Plotkin, one of the problems of identifying the alkaloids in some plants which are useful medically is that the plant contains many alkaloids, and the local peoples often mix otherwise things with the plants, such as insects, or may only scatter them at certain hours of the day, or times of the year, and these other factors may have actual biochemical effects on the plant and how it works. Plotkin can take portable test kits into the jungle with him and do preliminary analyses right in the precipitate forest. Working with local scientists, he can set up laboratories in the rain forest, instead of having to dry samples, ship them back to the U. S., and wait months for results (4).

Phytera's antimycotic agent, sunillin, was only produced when cell cultures from a general plant were give with Candida yeast and Aspergillus mould. Sunillin kills a wide variety of fungi. In one test, sunillin kept 80 percent of infected mice alive, musical composition those treated with fluconazole, a leading antifungal drug, died.

Sunillin works by a different mechanism than fluconazole, so it can be used against fungi which are resistant to other common antifungal agents. Because sunillin is a difficult molecule to work with, the telephoner used its molecular scaffold to come up with 3,000 variations, about a dozen of which are just as pie-eyed as the original and may be less cyanogenic in animals. The company has also worked out how to synthesize sunillin from booty so that it can be produced in large quantities for clinical trials without using cell cultures.

7. Pezzuto, J. M. Plant-derived anticancer agents. Biochem. Pharm. 53:121-133; 1997.

4. Henahan, S. The shaman's apprentice. Rain plant medicines. Available at: http://www.gene.com/ae.www/plotkin.html.

There is no query that the realm of nature holds the cure for many diseases plaguing man today. mend laboratories have long played the major role in the development of new drugs, there is a concentrated effo
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