Medicinal Plants: Chemistry, Biology and Omics reviews the phytochemistry, chemotaxonomy, molecular biology, and phylogeny of selected medicinal plant tribes and genera, and their relevance to drug efficacy. Medicinal plants provide a myriad of pharmaceutically active components, which have been commonly used in traditional Chinese medicine and worldwide for thousands of years. Increasing interest in plant-based medicinal resources has led to additional discoveries of many novel compounds, in various angiosperm and gymnosperm species, and investigations on their chemotaxonomy, molecular phylogeny and pharmacology. Chapters in this book explore the interrelationship within traditional Chinese medicinal plant groups and between Chinese species and species outside of China. Chapters also discuss the incongruence between chemotaxonomy and molecular phylogeny, concluding with chapters on systems biology and "-omics" technologies (genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics), and how they will play an increasingly important role in future pharmaceutical research.

Volume III of this manual provides an overview of the analytical investigation of 23 additional Chinese Herbal Drugs, which are most commonly used in Traditional Chinese Medicine. Together with Volumes I and II this current volume represents the most comprehensive overview to analytical studies of those herbal drugs. The quality proof of the investigation meets the standard of the European Drug Regulatory Authority. The authors refer to the bioactive constituents, pharmacological and biological activities of all single herbal drugs, as well as their therapeutic applications. Analytical methods applied are described in detail.