Laxmi Narain Misra
CSIR- Central Institute of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants, India
Title: Recent advances in validation of bioactivities of steroidal compounds in ashwagandha (Withania somnifera) the Indian Ginseng
Biography
Biography: Laxmi Narain Misra
Abstract
Traditional medicine has been an integral part of Asian society for centuries and a fresh interest in medicinal plants was revived in 1980s, when the harmful effects of synthetic drugs started surfacing. Now, people rely more on herbal drugs because of high prices and harmful side effects of synthetic drugs. It has become fast driven social phenomenon to depend upon the herbal products or traditional medicines prescribed by the practitioners of indigenous systems of medicine, viz. Ayurveda, Unani, Siddha, Homoeopathy, etc., in India and similar traditional systems of medicines, viz. TCM, etc., world over. With the increasing popularity and awareness of herbal drugs, the role of natural product chemists has significantly increased. Now, it has become necessary to study the detailed chemical components of established medicinal plants and develop their chemical profile to monitor the authentic presence in the herbal preparations and regulate their uses. Also, the invention of new natural sources of biologically active compounds, especially, from the waste materials, opens up further scope, in this direction. Isolation of new compounds with unusual chemical structures adds to the existing knowledge on structure elucidation and chemical dictionary for further use by medicinal chemists. In the present lecture, it is proposed to give examples of isolation of bioactive withasteroides from Withania somnifera, the Indian ginseng which is invariably used in about 90% of herbal products of India. The validation of most of the bioactivity in this plant has been done to show that they are associated mainly with the steroidal molecules present in it.