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from botanicals is the fallacy of uniqueness. By this I mean the assumption that nature will provide a unique agent that can be purified and have a salutary action on a disease state with little to no organ toxicity. These assumptions are naive and may not be sustainable. However the biodiversity may provide chemical structures that can be modified or redesigned and can be useful starting points for the drug discovery process. However, we must be smart enough to use the information that we collect. Techniques are going to be needed for the categorization and analysis of what the botanic explorers find. |
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Another question is once we find a useful agent, can we utilize today's technology to amplify its utility and ensure its availability in industrial quantities? These considerations are most important to industry. Supplies of plant pharmaceuticals can be very limited. We need to employ the technologies of recombinant DNA biotechnology to provide commercial quantities once these botanicals are discovered. It may be that the chemical synthetic process is cheaper and this also must be considered as an alternative supply route once the novelty of the compound and its utility in clinical practice has been established. There are indeed potential drugs that can be obtained through botanical sources. However, a systematic program is going to be needed to develop and explore possible leads and then to provide for adequate quantities of the substance. |
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The evolutionary process has created a great biodiversity. This does offer great potential, but we must realize that there is a limited window of opportunity. Man has unfortunately negatively impacted on our environmentand perhaps this adverse impact of the industrialization of the world is unavoidablebut as a result the biodiversity is diminished and the potential for development is also diminished. To be able to utilize the remaining diversity is a challenge and one that has been assumed by a number of recently devised projects. To successfully deal with the challenge requires the application of the most modern techniques. The most important might well be those related to the handling of the vast information that can be collected. Clearly computer applications for exploration and categorization of the plant world with automated processes for analysis and chemical categorization with innovative storage, organization, and retrieval, will be required to make the drug discovery process effective. The systematic computerization of knowledge in ethnobotany and pharmacognosy with emphasis on plant categorization across primitive societies will be helpful to sustain the discovery process. Using sophisticated computer techniques to look for similarities in medicinal plant use among primitive peoples to ascertain potentially useful observations can greatly aid the ethnobotanist. The goal is that these computerized techniques will replace the hundreds, if not thousands, of years needed for serendipitous observations such as that made by William Withering 200 years ago that led to the introduction of the digitalis glycosides in clinical medicine. |
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