Recent Progress In Medicinal Plants (Natural Products‪)‬

Traditional medicine includes plants, animals and mineral materials, extracts, mixture, condiments and other herbal preparations. Natural products and their derivatives represent more than 50 % of all the drugs in clinical use in the world. Higher plants contribute about 25 % of the total drugs from natural sources. Present volume attempts to provide recent research data on medicinal plants and other natural products investigated world-wide to combat many of the diseases and conditions viz. cancer, malaria, worms, depression, inflammation, ulcer, HIV/AIDS, allergy, atherosclerosis, gastroenteritis, skin care etc. Some interesting studies likely to provide new leads in drug research programme includes: Traditional knowledge and their indigenous uses in animals; Potentialities of marine algae as a source of natural non-toxic, antifouling agent; Protective role of natural plant products and new cytotoxic glycosides of the fungus Acrimonies striatisporum; Potential biological activities of Lepidus Yemeni, Vitas viniferous and other Malaysian plants for different applications; Review on chemical identification and biological activity of some plants of crassulaceae; Photochemical and chemoprevention studies; Recent researches on several Hypercom species; Medicinal plants as feed additives in animals nutrition and medicinal aspects of Amaranth are reported. Tannin's role in plants is often at conflict with food quality but present report indicates them to be beneficial in ruminant animals. Bryostatin (extract from Bugula meridian), a marine development and clinical applications of bryostatins has been presented as a prominent marine natural product. The expression of racing toxin and hyper-allergenic 2s albumins in castor seeds has been investigated during development etc.