WONDER MOLECULES FROM NATURE AND LABORATORY

• Main Author: Ahmad Sazali Hamzah (Author)
• Format: Book
• Language: English
• Published: Shah Alam, Selangor University Publication Centre (UPENA), Universiti Teknologi MARA 2010
• Series: Professorial lecture UiTM
• Subjects: Plant bioactive compounds; Plant molecular biology; Plants > Metabolism; Botanical chemistry
• Online Access: Click Here to View Status and Holdings.

 Plants have been utilized since ancient times as a source of food, medicine, clothing, dyes and many more. The use of plants as medicine has a long history, starting back from the Greek civilization in the West and the Chinese and Indian Civilization in the East'. For example, the Chinese emperor Shen Nung described the medicinal properties of plants during his reign in the year 2800 BC. Medicinal plants have been studied by the Greeks for many centuries. In about 75 BC, Dioscorides wrote De Materia Medica, a manuscript detailed examples of some 600 botanical plants used as medicines together with some 400 pages of coloured paintings of those plants. It is not known how many plants on earth are used as medicine but the number is almost certainly in the tens of thousands. In China for example, more than 5000 plant species are used by traditional healers for treating illnesses and injuries. Other traditional healers in the South Asia region use at least 1800 plant species. Most cultures elsewhere also recognize the importance of a large number medicinal plants. Although only 8% of the earth's surface is covered by rainforest, they offer an important source or treasure house for discoveries of many new bioactive compounds. It is estimated that out of 250,000 higher plants available on this planet between 5% and 15% have been investigated for their bioactive compounds. Out of that amount (250,000) more than half are found in the tropics. The study of plants, used by many local population has now included research scientists and pharmaceutical companies all over the world in search of new drugs for treating diseases such as cancer, Aids and many more.