While biotechnological advances, genomics and high throughput screenings or combinatorial and asymmetric syntheses are opening new opportunities in drug discovery, the industry is facing serious innovation deficit. The total number of new molecules registered per year has dropped in contrast to expected increase. Post marketing failures of blockbuster drugs have become major concerns of industries. On the other side, globally there is a major shift to sue of traditional medicine involving complementary and alternative therapies. Ethnopharmacology and traditional medicines have contributed in past significantly in the process of natural product drug discovery. There are two clear tracks where ethnopharmacology has potential to contribute in future drug research. First, as a discovery engine to provide new targets, leads, and second, use of quality assured and standardized traditional medicines. In this scenario, it is important to understand the mechanisms of drug discovery and pharmaceutical development with a focus on herbal drugs and neutraceutical. This book provides historical perspective, future prospects and significance of ethnopharmacology in drug research. It also provides important steps in botanical drug discovery and development including bioprospecting, quality control, standardization, pharmaceutics, stability, pharmacokinetics, and bioavailability with examples from ethnopharmacology and herbal medicine. One of the important feature of this book is to give an excellent insight to Good Laboratory and Good Clinical Practices along with very useful summary steps involved in filing IND or NDA of botanical products. The book also gives Regulators' perspective of validating claims and how ethnopharmacological or traditional medicines need different approach.

Are herbal medicines effective? Are organic foods really better for you? Will the cure to cancer eventually come from a newly discovered plant which dwells in the Amazon basin? Will medicines ever become affordable and available to the neediest? How will we produce enough food to keep up with an ever-increasing world population? Written with these issues in mind, Let Thy Food Be Thy Medicine is a response to the current flood of conflicting information regarding the use of plants for both consumption and medicinal purposes. Kathleen Hefferon addresses the myths and popular beliefs surrounding the application of plants in human health, revealing both their truths and inaccuracies, and provides an overview of the technologies scientists are using to further their research.
The book covers herbal medicines, functional and biofortified foods, plants and antibiotics, edible vaccines, and organic versus genetically modified foods, discussing each from a scientific standpoint. It these topics together for the first time, providing a much-needed overview of plants as medicine. Intended for scientists and professionals in related disciplines as well as the interested reader educated in the sciences, this book will confront claims made in the media with science and scientific analysis, providing readers with enough background to allow them to make their own judgments.