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KARACHI, March 12: Some of the speakers at the 7th Eurasia Conference on Chemical Sciences here on Tuesday stressed the need for evaluation and standardization of medicines derived from plants.
During different lecture sessions, scientists presented reviews on recent discoveries in natural product chemistry. The first plenary session was presided over by Prof B.M. Rode from the UK.
Mohammad Akhtar from the University of Southampton, UK, discussed the use of bio-organic and genetic engineering approaches. He presented the results and activation of oxygen in the biosynthesis of androgens and pointed out that a group of liver enzymes, known as cytochrome P-450, played an important role in the production of such male hormone.
Dr C. W. Wharton of the University of Birmingham focussed on molecular mechanism of bacterial resistance to Beta-Lactam antibiotics and mentioned that the antibiotics, comprising penicillins and cephalosporins, were the most used antibiotics worldwide because of their tolerability.
However, according to him, after introduction of the antibiotics in 1940s, bacterial resistance has been building up and has now reached a stage where all of these drugs can fail. In the given situation, he said, there was an urgent need to concentrate on this aspect to overcome the problem.
Dr Iqbal Choudhary of HEJ Research Institute of Chemistry said about 150 drugs, derived from higher plants, were currently in the market the world over, which were obtained from less than 100 species of medical plants. Most of these plant-derived drugs, he said, were originally discovered through the study of traditional customs and folk knowledge of indigenous peoples — the ethnobotanical approach.
He presented his research results of isolating and purifying compound with different biological activities, including anti-diabetic, anti-epileptic and anti-leshmanial (a skin disease) lead compounds. Many of the bioactive compounds have also been structurally transformed by using micro-organisms, he added.
Dr A. H. Gilani of the Aga Khan University reviewed various medicinal plants used in traditional practices in Pakistan and other countries. He stressed the need for evaluating the medicinally used plants on a scientific basis to validate their pharmacological action.
Such studies had contributed a lot to drug discovery system, he said, and referred to the isolation of a drug from Foxglove which is used by millions of cardiac patients.
Other speakers also highlighted the importance of exploring the natural resources, including the herbals, for different biological activities. Pakistan is enriched with herbal plants and there is a need for a systematic programme to conduct a study on those plants, they added.
CONCLUDING SESSION: Speaking at the concluding session of the conference, Prof Hitoshi Ohtaki, chairman, international organizing committee of the conference, announced that the next moot would be held in Hanoi, Vietnam, in 2003.
He said it was satisfying that the organizers of the conference were successful in maintaining the high standards of a scientific conference. Now scientists from Canada and USA, as well as African countries, have also started taking part in the conferences, which gave to understand that the Eurasia conference was expanding with the passage of time.
As chief guest, he also gave away prizes to the winners of a poster competition which was held on March 10 as part of the conference. Dr Salimuzzaman Siddiqui prize went to Zaheerul Haq of HEJ Institute, while Ghulam Murtaza Maharvi of HEJ Institute got Prof Zafar Zaidi memorial award and the third prize — HEJ Award — was bagged by Ahmad Abbas Khan (HEJ) and Nabeel Ghayur (AKU).
