Laxminarain Misra
Accepted Abstracts: Nat Prod Chem Res
Traditional medicine has been an integral part of Asian society for centuries and the interest in medicinal plants was revived in 1980s, when the harmful effects of synthetic drugs started surfacing. Now, people rely more on herbal drugs because of high prices and harmful side effects of synthetic drugs.It has become fast driven social phenomenon to depend upon the herbal products or traditional medicines prescribed by the practitioners of indigenous systems of medicine, viz. Ayurveda, Unani, Siddha, Homoeopathy, etc., in India and similar traditional systems of medicines, viz. TCM, etc., world over. With the increasing popularity and awareness of herbal drugs, the role of natural product chemists has significantly increased. Now, it has become necessary to study the detailed chemical components of established medicinal plants and develop their chemical profile to monitor the authentic presence in the herbal preparations and regulate their uses. Also, the invention of new natural sources of biologically active compounds, especially, from the waste materials, opens up further scope, in this direction. Isolation of new compounds with unusual chemical structures adds to the existing knowledge on structure elucidation and chemical dictionary for further use by medicinal chemists. In the present lecture, it is proposed to give examples of isolation of compounds of novel/unusual structures (ranging from simple alkanes to complex structures), phytochemicals of therapeutic and perfumery significance, compounds of chemotypic, chemosystematic and biogenetic significance from the chemically studied natural flora.
Laxminarain Misra completed his PhD in 1981 and got opportunity to work in the renowned groups of natural product chemistry with Prof. F Bohlmann, Technical University, Berlin (1982-84), Prof. H Wagner, LM University, Munich (1991-92 and 1999-2000), Prof. H Laatsch, GA University, Goettingen (1998), Prof. M Pischetsrieder, FA University, Erlangen (2009- 10), besides CSIR- CIMAP, Lucknow. He has published more than 100 research papers in reputed international journals of medicinal and aromatic plants and has protected the promising inventions by filing suitable patents. He is currently holding the position of Chief scientist and Head of Chemical Sciences Division of CSIR-CIMAP, Lucknow, India.
