Medicinal Plants - Recent Advances in Research and Development

Since ancient times, plants have been used as a prime natural source of alternative medicines and have played an important role in our lives. The old tradition of medicinal plant application has turned into a highly profitable business in the global market, resulting in the release of a large number of herbal products. People have tried to find different sources of medicines to alleviate pain and cure different illnesses. Due to severe constraints of synthetic drugs and the increasing contraindications of their usage, there is a growing interest world over in the usage of natural products based on medicinal herbs, hence, there is an ever expanding market of herbs and herbal based medicinal preparations all over the world. This has culminated into an exponential increase in number of research groups in different geographical locations and generation of volume of research data in the field in a short span of time.

The path breaking advancement in research methods and interdisciplinary approaches is giving birth to newer perspectives. Therefore, it becomes imperative to keep pace with the advancement in research and development in the field of medicinal herbs.

There are a large number of researchers in different parts of the world working on various aspects of medicinal plants and 'herbal medicines'. The idea is to bring their recent research work into light in the form of a book.

The proposed book contains chapters by the eminent researchers in different countries and working with different disciplines of medicinal plants. Articles pertain to different disciplines such as:

1. Resources and conservation of medicinal plants

2. Biosynthesis and metabolic engineering of medicinal plants

3. Tissue culture, propagation and bioreactor technology of medicinal plants

4. Phytochemical research on medicinal plants

5. Herbal medicines and plant-derived agents in cancer prevention and therapy

6. Herbal medicines and plant-derived agents in metabolic syndrome management

7. Herbal medicines and plant-derived agents in modulation of immune-related disorders

8. Herbal medicines and hepatotoxicity

The book will prove itself an asset for the researchers, professionals and also students in the area of medicinal plants and mechanism of their action.

Professor/Dr. Hsin-Sheng Tsay is a renowned researcher and teacher. He completed his Ph.D. in Agronomy from the National Taiwan University about 40 years ago. Tsay is working with medicinal plants indigenous to Taiwan and China. For the last 14 years, he has been working at the Chaoyang University of Technology. There he served as Dean, College of Science and Engineering, and Director and Chair Professor of Graduate Institute of Biotechnology. Professor Tsay has transferred about 20 technologies pertaining to the functional foods for commercialization. He has published 265 research papers, has guided 23 PhDs and more than 100 Masters Students.

Professor/Dr. Lie-Fen Shyur is currently serving as a Research Fellow and Deputy Director in the Agricultural Biotechnology Research Center, Academia Sinica, Taiwan and also holding Adjunct or Joint Professorships at five academic institutions in Taiwan. Dr. Shyur's lab research foci include (1) research and development of phytomedicines and their derived phyto-agents for prevention or therapy of inflammatory diseases, including cancers, septic shock, and hepatitis, (2) elucidating biosynthesis pathway of pharmacologically bioactive compounds in medicinal plants, and (3) industrial enzyme biotechnology.

Professor/Dr. Agrawal graduated in 1976 from the Aligarh Muslim University (Central Govt. University) and after that obtained his Ph.D. degree in 1982 from the Garhwal University (Renamed as Hemwati Nandan Bahuguna Garhwal University, and became Central Govt. University since 2009). Professor Agrawal has more than 34 years of research experience in Plant Biotechnology of diverse species including medicinal plants.

Professor/Dr. Yang-Chang Wu obtained his Ph.D. in Pharmacognosy from the College of Pharmacy, Kaohsiung Medical University (KMU), Taiwan in 1986. Attributed to his significant contribution to research on natural products, he was selected as the Chair Professor & Vice-President of Graduate Institute of Integrated Medicine and College of Chinese Medicine at China Medical University (CMU), Taiwan from 2010-2012. Since 2012, he was appointed as the Chair Professor & Vice-President as well as Dean of the School of Pharmacy, CMU, Taiwan. In 2007, he was awarded by Wang Ming-Ning Foundation for outstanding merit and high scholastic achievement to medical and pharmaceutical research.

Dr. Sheng-Yang Wang is a Distinguished Professor at the Department of Forestry, National Chung-Hsing University, Taiwan. Dr. Wang obtained his Ph.D. Degree from the National Taiwan University. He is one of the well-known phytochemists in Taiwan and has expertise in the qualitative and quantitative determination of natural products by chromatography and spectroscopy.