~ 1 ~ Diversity Analysis and Conservation of Medicinal Plants

National Conference on Agrotechnology and Prof itable Marketing of Tropical Medicinal and Aromatic Plants, February 16-18, 2017, TNAU, Coimbatore TECHNICAL SESSION ~ 1 ~ Diversity Analysis and Conservation of Medicinal Plants 1 National Conference on Agrotechnology and Prof itable Marketing of Tropical Medicinal and Aromatic Plants, February 16-18, 2017, TNAU, Coimbatore L ead Paper-1 LEAD PAPERS Perspectives on the Global Medicinal Supply Chain Ann Ar mbrecht Visiting Fulbright Research Scholar, USA In the US, consumers of herbal supplements tend to believe that in buying products made with plants, they’re making the environmentally responsible choice. Unlike the food industry where attention to traceability and sustainable and ethical sourcing is gaining traction, however, neither consumers, the media nor natural products companies pay much attention to the crucial connections between the quality of the raw material, traceability in the supply chain, and the eff icacy of the f inished product. Even for those seeking to know more, in an industry not known for transparency, it is very diff icult to f ind accurate information about the supply chain or about the human and environmental costs. This presentation will discuss the Sustainable Herbs Project (SHP), an online multi- media project dedicated to educating consumers about quality, sustainability, and equity in the botanical industry. The goal of this project is to 1) inform consumers and the media about quality, sustainability and social justice in the herb industry; 2) connect individuals and organizations working in different sectors of a fragmented industry; and 3) empower individuals to act on this knowledge and these connections. I will present perspectives on the global medicinal plant supply chain and the necessity of addressing quality, sustainability, and equity issues in order to reach a socially and environmentally conscious consumer. AnnArmbrechtisananthropologist(Harvard,PhD1996)andwriter.Sheisthe Director of The Sustainable Herbs Project, co-producer of Numen: The Nature of Plants, and a 2017 Fulbright-Nehru Scholar in India where she is continuing her research following medicinal plants through the supply chain. 2 National Conference on Agrotechnology and Prof itable Marketing of Tropical Medicinal and Aromatic Plants, February 16-18, 2017, TNAU, Coimbatore Medicinal plants and herbal drugs : Challenges and Opportunities M .J. Nanj an J.S.S.College of Pharmacy, Ootacamund, India There is an ever increasing demand for herbal drugs, especially in developed countries. In all these countries, consumers are advised to look for only standardized herbal drugs. Herbal drugs, therefore, need to be standardized. The primary reason for standardization of herbal drugs is to achieve as much control as possible in double blind clinical studies. But then, botanicals are highly variable in their chemical makeup. This natural variation in the chemical makeup of medicinal plants presents a considerable challenge for researchers in order to obtain reproducible results. With the current technology, it is not possible to quantify the hundreds of chemical constituents present in medicinal plants in a timely and cost eff icient manner. The compromise solution to this dilemma has been to select a marker compound(s) and then ensure that every batch contains the same amount of these marker compound(s). The market’s over emphasis on marker content and standardization, however, has been a boon for unethical businessmen. What is more, markers have not been identif ied for the vast majority of botanicals. While marker content is an important issue, some may lose sight of the fact that one has to deal with the plant f irst of all. In other words, chemical analysis is moot if one does not have the right plant or if the plant material is not pure. Three other cross cutting themes that have emerged are the need for authenticated reference materials, national quality standards and pharmacognosy education and training. Despite the tremendous success of chemo- and antibiotic therapy, it is believed that only 30% of about 2000 existing diseases can be cured today. Others can be treated only symptomatically or insuff iciently and some not at all. There is an urgent need, therefore, to discover eff icient and causality acting drugs to treat several diseases. In this context, combinatorial chemistry, a collection of methods whereby simultaneous chemical synthesis of a large number of compounds using a variety of starting materials 3 National Conference on Agrotechnology and Prof itable Marketing of Tropical Medicinal and Aromatic Plants, February 16-18, 2017, TNAU, Coimbatore can be produced quickly and high throughput screening, a process whereby the large number of compounds can be tested against biological targets to f ind active compounds, have been used as drug discovery source for the past more than 30 years. Since 1980 onwards a great number of screening programs have been initiated by industries, universities, and research institutions, searching for new bioactives. Several big pharmaceutical industries have, therefore, either terminated or scaled down natural product research. But then, to date we f ind only a couple new chemical entities/drugs approved by FDA, resulting from these techniques. In other words, the expected surge has not materialized. On the other hand, natural products, especially those derived from plant sources, have played an important role in the drug discovery process. When one analyzes the data on new chemical entities/drugs developed for all diseases and from different natural sources the world over for the past nearly 30 years, it shows that only less than 30% of them are of synthetic origin. This clearly demonstrates the influence of natural products in drug discovery process. Nature seems to continue to serve as an excellent source of novel active agents that will serve as leads and scaffolds for developing the drugs, desperately needed for the multitude of diseases. The functional group diversity and architectural platforms built into natural products during their biosynthesis continue to provide lessons for the medicinal chemists. What is more, the inventory of natural molecules remains incomplete and chemomics, understanding the molecular logic of biosynthetic enzymes and pathways, has opened up new approaches to reengineer newer natural products. Discovery of new molecules and their functions are, therefore, likely to continue as sources of natural products are more systematically evaluated. In this connection, a multidisciplinary approach for drug discovery, involving the generation of truly novel molecular diversity from natural product sources combined with total and combinatorial synthetic methodologies including the manipulation of biosynthetic pathways, should provide the best solution to the current productivity crisis facing the scientif ic community engaged in the drug discovery and development. It is, therefore, necessary that we should expand and not decrease the exploration of nature, and in particular plant sources, for novel bioactive agents that may serve as leads and scaffolds for elaboration into the desperately needed eff icacious drugs for the multitude of disease indications. 4 National Conference on Agrotechnology and Prof itable Marketing of Tropical Medicinal and Aromatic Plants, February 16-18, 2017, TNAU, Coimbatore Medicinal Plants Genetic Resource in India: Current Scenar io and Future Prospects P. M anivel, R. Nagar aj a Reddy, M anish Kumar M ittal and Jitendr a Kumar ICAR-Directorate of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants Research Borivai, Anand 387 310, Gujarat, India (www.dmapr.org.in; email: [email protected]) Medicinal plants offer alternative remedies with tremendous opportunities to generate income, employment and foreign exchange in developing countries like India. The global market for the medicinal plants and herbal medicine is increasing every year. India is one of the leading countries in Asia in terms of the wealth of traditional knowledge systems related to herbal medicine and employs a large number of plant species which includes Ayurveda (2000 species), Siddha (1121 species), Unani (751 species) and Tibetan (337 species). Consumption of herbal medicines is widespread and increasing in recent years because of its low or nil side effects than the modern medicines. Majority of the medicinal plants are being collected from its wild habitats and used. But, due to its increased demand of many species, the harvesting was done in an unsustainable manner and leading to not only short supply of these materials but also brought some species into red, endangered and threatened (RET) status. Several of these medicinal plant species have slow growth rates, low population densities, and narrow geographic ranges; therefore they are more prone to extinction. This situation called for an alternative strategy, and many species were brought under cultivation. Economic cultivation of any medicinal plants requires high yielding varieties, good agricultural practices. The development of improved varieties in any species is soled depending upon the availability of genetic variability. Hence, the germplasm management i.e. collection, conservation, evaluation and documentations plays an important role. In the present paper, an over-view of the present status of medicinal plant genetic resources in India and its future prospects were discussed. 5 National Conference on Agrotechnology and Prof itable Marketing of Tropical Medicinal and Aromatic

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