NAGPUR, INDIA, February 11, 2011: Although traditional Indian medicine has long been used to cure many diseases, the actual mechanism underlying the action of these medicines still remains largely unknown. Turmeric, neem, and tulsi are known to have some anti-bacterial and anti-fungal properties. But which molecules in these actually act and on what is yet to be worked out even by Ayurveda.
An Indian chemist based in Boston, U.S., has begun isolating molecules from such herbal sources with the aim of using them to prepare drugs specifically targeting tropical diseases like malaria, tuberculosis etc. He is also working towards developing hybrid molecules (mixture of herbal and modern medicine).
Mukund Chorghade, president of Chorghade Enterprises and chief scientific officer at THINQ (Technology, Health, Innovation, Novelty and Quality) Pharma, a contract research organization in Boston, said that his company was working on diseases that were otherwise of less interest to the West. ‘Indian pharmaceutical sector has blindly copied the West. The innovation rate has gone down substantially. But there is huge scope for developing drugs based on Indian herbs using reverse pharmacology. My company is working in this direction for developing medicines especially for diseases common to Asian population,’ he said.
Chorghade said that certain traditional remedies like bitter gourd and pomegranate juice for controlling diseases like diabetes had worked well against breast cancer and prostrate cancer in men and women respectively. ‘If we can extract the molecules that do this job, we can have certain real good drugs,’ he said.