Revised and updated for the second edition, this reference volume draws on biosynthetic relationships to describe both the primary and secondary classes of matabolites and the drugs from which they originate.

Phytochemicals from medicinal plants are receiving ever greater attention in the scientific literature, in medicine, and in the world economy in general. For example, the global value of plant-derived pharmaceuticals will reach $500 billion in the year 2000 in the OECD countries. In the developing countries, over-the-counter remedies and "ethical phytomedicines," which are standardized toxicologically and clinically defined crude drugs, are seen as a promising low cost alternatives in primary health care. The field also has benefited greatly in recent years from the interaction of the study of traditional ethnobotanical knowledge and the application of modem phytochemical analysis and biological activity studies to medicinal plants. The papers on this topic assembled in the present volume were presented at the annual meeting of the Phytochemical Society of North America, held in Mexico City, August 15-19, 1994. This meeting location was chosen at the time of entry of Mexico into the North American Free Trade Agreement as another way to celebrate the closer ties between Mexico, the United States, and Canada. The meeting site was the historic Calinda Geneve Hotel in Mexico City, a most appropriate site to host a group of phytochemists, since it was the address of Russel Marker. Marker lived at the hotel, and his famous papers on steroidal saponins from Dioscorea composita, which launched the birth control pill, bear the address of the hotel.

Medicinal Plants: Chemistry, Biology and Omics reviews the phytochemistry, chemotaxonomy, molecular biology, and phylogeny of selected medicinal plant tribes and genera, and their relevance to drug efficacy. Medicinal plants provide a myriad of pharmaceutically active components, which have been commonly used in traditional Chinese medicine and worldwide for thousands of years. Increasing interest in plant-based medicinal resources has led to additional discoveries of many novel compounds, in various angiosperm and gymnosperm species, and investigations on their chemotaxonomy, molecular phylogeny and pharmacology. Chapters in this book explore the interrelationship within traditional Chinese medicinal plant groups and between Chinese species and species outside of China. Chapters also discuss the incongruence between chemotaxonomy and molecular phylogeny, concluding with chapters on systems biology and "-omics technologies (genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics), and how they will play an increasingly important role in future pharmaceutical research. - Reviews best practice and essential developments in medicinal plant chemistry and biology - Discusses the principles and applications of various techniques used to discover medicinal compounds - Explores the analysis and classification of novel plant-based medicinal compounds - Includes case studies on pharmaphylogeny - Compares and integrates traditional knowledge and current perception of worldwide medicinal plants

This book details several important medicinal plants, their occurrence, plant compounds and their chemical structures, and pharmacological properties against various human diseases. It also gives information on isolation and structural elucidation of phytocompounds, bio-assays, metabolomic studies, and therapeutical applications of plant compounds.

This new edition of the book by Jean Bruneton has been revised and expanded by over 200 pages, to reflect the most recent advances (natural or semisynthetic substances) as well as the most recent contributions to the therapeutic arsenal (antimalarial, antitumor, or antiretroviral agents). Building upon biosynthetic relationships, the author describes the different classes of metabolites and the drugs that produce them. Organized in four parts (primary metabolites, phenolics, shikimates and acetates, terpenes and steroids, alkaloids), the book develops for each class, phytochemical generalities, distribution, biosynthesis, extraction and quantitation methods, and biological aspects. For each raw material, it presents the origin, identity, production, composition, uses, processing and optimization: thus a considerable amount of botanical, chemical, analytical, pharmacological and therapeutic data is gathered into a particularly coherent compilation, for each product, the therapeutic indications and recommended usage are specified. An extensive index (about 3 000 entries) and nearly 500 recent references represent a valuable starting point for the reader's own lietrature research. This encyclopedia of pharmacognosy and phytochemistry is written for students, educators and professionals using plant resources in pharmacy, cosmetology, perfumery, botany, food technology and other fields.

This volume focuses on the importance of therapeutically active compounds of natural origin. Natural materials from plants, microbes, animals, marine organisms and minerals are important sources of modern drugs. Beginning with two chapters on the development and definition of the interdisciplinary field of pharmacognosy, the volume offers up-to-date information on natural and biosynthetic sources of drugs, classification of crude drugs, pharmacognosical botany, examples of medical application, WHO ́s guidelines and intellectual property rights for herbal products.

This book starts with a general introduction to phytochemistry, followed by chapters on plant constituents, their origins and chemistry, but also discussing animal-, microorganism- and mineral-based drugs. Further chapters cover vitamins, food additives and excipients as well as xenobiotics and poisons. The book also explores the herbal approach to disease management and molecular pharmacognosy and introduces methods of qualitative and quantitative analysis of plant constituents. Phytochemicals are classified as primary (e.g. carbohydrates, lipids, amino acid derivations, etc.) or secondary (e.g. alkaloids, terpenes and terpenoids, phenolic compounds, glycosides, etc.) metabolites according to their metabolic route of origin, chemical structure and function. A wide variety of primary and secondary phytochemicals are present in medicinal plants, some of which are active phytomedicines and some of which are pharmaceutical excipients.