Pharmaceutical Discoveries Based on Ethnomedicinal Plants: 1985 to 2000 and Beyond1

Abstract

Fifteen years after a symposium on economic plants projecting to the year 2000, what predictions and remarks of the speakers with reference to ethnobotany and medicinal plants proved prophetic and what others fell short? Certainly they predicted a continuation of acculturation, biodiversity loss, and technology advances. They also foresaw the need for collaborative, multidisciplinary research and major government funding, and changes in regulations governing an expanded industry in botanicals, nutriceuticals, and phytopharmaceuticals, all of which occurred. However, many technologies were in their infancy or unknown, such as gene amplification and recombinant procedures, high-throughput screening, gene chip technology, and combinatorial chemistry, and are only now being used in research and development in the discovery of new therapeutics. Likewise, who would have foreseen worldwide devastating effects of mutant microorganisms resistant to drugs of choice for treating important diseases, such as malaria and tuberculosis? Research data involving these two infections illustrate the value of finding activity based on collections specifically targeted by indigenous users (antimalaria) and those generally used medicinally together with chemotaxonomic selections (antituberculosis). A discussion of research beyond 2000 addresses the future of ethnobotanical research, acculturation and biodiversity losses, collaborative research, regulation and/or standardization of pharmaceuticals, nutriceuticals, and phytopharmaceuticals, and new technologies.