Basic understanding and awareness of ethnopharmaceutical and ethnopharmacological issues and research. Knowledge of methods used in drug discovery from natural sources. Discussion of the issues around law and international treaties. Importance of ethnopharmaceutical knowledge for world health.
Learning objective
Basic understanding and awareness of ethnopharmaceutical and ethnopharmacological issues and research. Knowledge of methods used in drug discovery from natural sources. Discussion of the issues around law and international treaties. Importance of ethnopharmaceutical knowledge for world health.
Content
Introduction into ethnopharmacy and related disciplines: definitions of terms, working methods, research projects, bioprospecting. Traditional medicinal plants of different cultures and their role in modern Western medicine (rational application of traditional uses). Historical data as sources for drug research. Today's "fashion plants." Empirical, traditional knowledge versus Evidence Based Medicine. The role of biodiversity (CBD, Rio 1992; Nagoya, 2010) and problems associated with drug discovery from natural products. Screening strategies for drug discovery (random screening versus screening based on cultural, ecological, ethnopharmacological, chemotaxonomic criteria). Traditional knowledge in relation to the fight against malaria and its implementation in research, product development and development cooperation. Introduction to and selected examples of herbal drugs and poisons, mode of action, and their ethnopharmacological importance. Critical analysis of bioprospecting as a drug discovery strategy.
Lecture notes
Handouts will be provided.
Literature
Ethnopharmacology (2015) Michael Heinrich, Anna K. Jäger, Wiley Blackwell, Chichester, West Sussex
Prerequisites / Notice
Prerequisites: Basic lectures in biology or biochemistry and pharmaceutical biology have been attended; not suitable for first semester students.
