Pharma, Pharmaceutics and Biotechnology Conference

Ethno pharmacy is a multidisciplinary field of research that represents an investigation into the traditional medicinal practices across different cultures through the use of natural products and herbal remedies.

In this session, we would explain why ethno pharmacy is of importance in understanding cultural practice and health in relation to its potential contribution to contemporary medicine. Ethno pharmacy tries to record, research, and conserve the indigenous systems of treatment of diseases using locally available plants and natural products that have been used through historical periods across communities worldwide.

These open up avenues for looking into and researching the healing properties of medicinal plants and their role in health and wellness. Such exploration into their cultural significance thus results in tapping knowledge and beliefs that form the basis of the traditional healing systems. Medicinal plants are a significant constituent of ethno pharmacy; indeed, many medicines of herbal origin are based on them.

There is an urgent need to understand the pharmacological properties of medicinal plants as a basis for validation regarding their efficacy and safety. This session will focus on key examples of medicinal plants: active compounds, mechanisms of action, and main therapeutic applications used in different cultures. Ethno botany is the study on the interaction of humans with plants, closely related to ethno pharmacy.

A historical review of the various uses of plants by different cultures for medicinal purposes may turn to be a key instrument in the detection of new drug candidates and in the right use of natural resources. The combination of traditional knowledge and modern scientific research produces the innovation of novel therapeutics and may even enhance the development of complementary therapies.

Areas to be tackled during the session include intellectual rights associated with the issue of ethical concerns in research, and cultural sensitivity approaches to healthcare practice, where ethno pharmacy is quite critically lagging behind. Understanding where traditional meets modern medicine in response to the continuous demand for natural and alternative therapies is as important.

The students will be exposed to new and latest research studies in the area of ethno pharmacy that contains case studies on how traditional knowledge could be integrated into mainstream healthcare systems. The diversity of their patient populations could better be taken care of, and they could improve the quality of care among the patients, by opening their healthcare professionals to cultural relevance of traditional medicine and scientific validation of herbal remedies.

The session will create an overview of ethno pharmacy as such, highlighting the significance in global health and how the idea of such treatment strategies might suggest lessons for modern therapeutic strategies.

Participants will be able to take home the depth of the wonderful history of ethno pharmacy, and the portent this holds for the future of healthcare from the sessions.