Volume 11, March 2015, Pages 332–346
Ecopharmacognosy and the responsibilities of natural product research to sustainability ☆
Highlights
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- Introduces the philosophy behind the new term “ecopharmacognosy”.
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- Discusses practical examples in the natural product sciences of the importance of thinking sustainably.
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- Describes how phytochemical technologies can enhance the development of traditional medicines in a sustainable manner.
Abstract
The
recently developed term “ecopharmacognosy” is defined as the study of
sustainable, biologically active, natural resources. As a philosophical
approach, it provides a conceptual framework for developing new
strategies and new scientific perspectives which may improve future
global food and health care product accessibility and assure beneficial
outcomes. In this brief article some facets of how the precepts of
ecopharmacognosy may apply in developing new medicinal products may be
developed, based on sustainability and the use of integrated
technologies.
Although from a medicinal agent
perspective, plants remain a primary source of global health care, these
resources are not being pursued by major pharmaceutical companies as
sources of new agents, and essentially all tropical diseases, as well as
most microbially based diseases, remain outside the scope of their drug
discovery programs. Countries and regions therefore must address their
own drug discovery needs for “local” and some global diseases. In
addition, the cost of drug importation is so high that development of
local resources, i.e. traditional medicines, may be the only rational
alternative approach. At the same time, network pharmacology is
exploring the many diverse effects of both individual and complex
natural products at the gene level, and this is offering new
opportunities to rethink and restructure the core, long-standing,
Western, magic bullet philosophy to drug discovery. Other
ecopharmacognosy changes underway include the computer-aided design of
natural product derivatives, based on molecular docking, which is
providing targetable enzyme substrates, and remote sensing technologies
which can assess natural materials non-invasively for critical
constituents as a part of rethinking quality control strategies in the
field. Furthermore, there are the hyphenated chromatographic and
spectroscopic procedures to quantitatively analyze single and
multicomponent plant mixtures for bioactive markers to enhance quality
control and, thereby, patient care. The relationship of these evolving
approaches will serve as practical examples to the philosophies of
ecopharmacognosy. In summary, with respect to health care,
ecopharmacognosy poses the long-term practical question for drugs, “How
Green is Your Medicine?”
Graphical abstract
Keywords
- Ecopharmacognosy;
- Traditional medicine;
- Quality control;
- Integrated technologies;
- Network pharmacology;
- Biosynthesis
- ☆
- This paper is part of a special issue of selected presentations delivered at the 9th International Symposium on Chromatography of Natural Products, 26–29 May 2014, Lublin, Poland.
- Tel.:
+1 847 903 1886.
Copyright © 2014 Phytochemical Society of Europe. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
