Isolation and characterisation of biopolymers from anti-cancer medicinal herbs

Abstract

In recent years, medicinal plants have become popular for the treatment of several diseases due to their efficacy and cost effectiveness. Plant derived therapeutic agents are increasingly sought out as pharmaceuticals for the treatment of life-threatening illnesses. Important contributions have already been made in the recent years to the drug market by the compounds isolated from natural sources or from their derivatives. There is no doubt that, novel lifesaving drugs could be discovered by a systematic evaluation of ethno medicinal information using modern scientific tools.This thesis attempts to systematically combine ethnomedicinal information together with the contemporary scientific methods to evaluate anti-cancer and other complementary properties of several traditional medicinal herbs with an aim to discover anti-cancer formulations. Other major objective of this project is to isolate and characterise potent anti-cancer agents from Traditional Chinese Medicinal (TCM) herbs.

Date of Award	2012
Original language	English