Natural Products and Drug Discovery: An Integrated Approach

Natural Products and Drug Discovery: An Integrated Approach provides an applied overview of the field, from traditional medicinal targets, to cutting-edge molecular techniques. Natural products have always been of key importance to drug discovery, but as modern techniques and technologies have allowed researchers to identify, isolate, extract and synthesize their active compounds in new ways, they are once again coming to the forefront of drug discovery.

Combining the potential of traditional medicine with the refinement of modern chemical technology, the use of natural products as the basis for drugs can help in the development of more environmentally sound, economical, and effective drug discovery processes. Natural Products & Drug Discovery: An Integrated Approach reflects on the current changes in this field, giving context to the current shift and using supportive case studies to highlight the challenges and successes faced by researchers in integrating traditional medicinal sources with modern chemical technologies. It therefore acts as a useful reference to medicinal chemists, phytochemists, biochemists, pharma R&D professionals, and drug discovery students and researchers.

Dr. Subhash C. Mandal, PhD is Professor at Division of Pharmacognosy, Department of Pharmaceutical Technology, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India. Professor Mandal is the recipient of prestigious awards including Endeavour Research Award, Government of Australia; Distinguished Education & Research Award, AAiPS, USA; Talented Scientist Award, University of Colombo, Sri Lanka; SAARC Fellowship Award, University Grants Commission (UGC), Bangladesh; Fast Track Young Scientist Award, Department of Science and Technology , UGC Research Award, India and Outstanding University Teachers’ Award , Department of higher education , Government of West Bengal , India. He has supervised more than 30 doctoral and 25 M. Pharm scholars and has more than 300 research publications, several patents, books and book chapters to his credit. Professor Mandal has delivered more than 50 research presentations around the globe, has chaired many international conferences, and successfully completed more than 10 government-funded research projects. He is reviewer and board member of several high-impact journals and is a recognized host scientist for many international research programs with developing countries sponsored by the Indian Government. He has visited more than 30 countries for various scientific deliberations, collaborations and exchange programmes.

Dr. Vivekananda Mandal, an Assistant Professor at Guru Ghasidas Central University, Bilaspur, India, is one of the young researchers in Pharmacognosy with research emphasis on botanical extraction and Phyto-analysis. Dr. Mandal is a gold medalist from one of the premier institutes of India, IIT (BHU). Dr. Mandal is also the recipient of the International Fellowship from Wakasa wan Energy Research Center, Government of Japan, for an advanced research program on innovations of atomic force technology for cancer drug discovery at National University of Fukui, Japan. Dr. Mandal has several high-impact research publications, book chapters, and patents to his credit apart from government-funded research projects. Dr. Mandal is also involved in technology transfer process with industries.

Tetsuya Konishi is Professor Emeritus in Functional and Analytical Food Sciences at NUPALS, Japan. After graduating from Tokyo College of Pharmacy, he completed his graduate research working on radioactive tracer in drug metabolism as a research assistant at the college’s physical pharmacy department. After obtained his PhD degree in Pharmaceutical sciences, Prof Konishi joined Dr. Lester Packer’s lab as a postdoctoral fellow at University of California, Berkeley where he engaged in membrane bioenergetics research on halobacterial rhodopsin. In 1985, he obtained a professor position and established the radiopharmaceutical science lab at Niigata College of Pharmacy, where free radical biology and molecular biological researches were developed. In 2001, he was involved in establishing the Food Science department in NUPALS and started food function study using antioxidant traditional oriental medicine formula as a food model. His current research topics are the food functions modulating DNA damage responses and aging, especially cell cycle checkpoint kinases and their application in complementary medicine and cancer treatment. He has published over 150 papers in peer reviewed journals, serves as reviewer and editor of several scientific journals, and has been chairing the International Niigata Symposium on Diet and Health since 2004.