Hygeia journal for drugs and medicines

1-2

Authors: Prof. Dr. Annie Shirwaikar

The use of herbal medicine has increased worldwide in recent years as they are believed to be safer with fewer adverse effects as compared to conventional medicines. Growing evidence points out that many current conventional drug therapies suppress the symptoms of disease while really ignoring the underlying processes , in contrariety to natural products which demonstrate better clinical results as they address the root cause more effectively. The full therapeutic potential of the herb is often,however, not realized because of unsuitable molecular size and/or poor lipid solubility,which in turn results in low absorption with reduced bioavailability. The poor progress in herbal medicine development has prompted the need for a multidisciplinary approach to drug delivery. For a long time a lack of scientific evidence,coupled with manufacturing problems like isolation and identification of individual pure phytocomponents and standardization deterred the development of herbal drugs and poly herbals as novel formulations. The need to increase patient compliance and to avert recurrent administration has necessitated a scientific approach in the development of these formulations. The novel drug delivery system technology has been useful in enhancing the bioavailability of herbal drug delivery systems. Novel carriers viz. liposomes, niosomes, nano-particles,lipid based systems etc. have been documented for successful modified herbal drug delivery.Some noteworthy advantages over the conventional herbal formulations include enhanced stability, solubility, bioavailability,pharmacological activity, sustained delivery etc.

10-17

Authors: P. Ragavendran, Radha A., Mariya Paul and D. Suresh Kumar*

Plan: Careya arborea is a medicinal plant used in Ayurveda and Chinese medicine. The bark, leaves and fruits are used in these systems for the treatment of ulcers, haemorrhoids and tumours. Several reports are available on the pharmacognosy of the leaf and bark of this medicinal tree. However, there is complete lack of information on the pharmacognosy of the fruit. The present paper is the first report on this subject. Methodology: Histology of the fruit and microscopy of the fruit powder were studied. Tests for identification of phytochemical compound classes were carried out on methanol extract of the fresh fruit. The chemical constitution of the fruits was studied using HPTLC and HPLC. Outcome: Phytochemical screening revealed the presence of alkaloids, flavonoids, phenols, tannins, sterols and fixed oils. The fruit contains high amount of phenols, of which, gallic acid is present at the rate of 0.92 ± 0.03%. The high content of gallic acid and reported antibacterial activities of the extract quality the fruit for further investigations.

28-37

Authors: Bandita Sarma1, Shamanna Mohan1, JanardhanSaravanan, Satyendra Deka*, Pallab Kalita, Nayan Talukdar, Bhargav Nimavat

Plan: Present work aims to synthesize a series of new benimidazoles (SBS-a-m) with various substitutions at 2-o-amino phenyl position and to evaluate their in-vitro antibacterial and anti-fungal activity. Prologue: Benzimidazole containing organic compounds forms a significant group of drugs which exhibit an array of biological activities ranging from antibacterial, antifungal, anti-inflammatory, analgesic, anthelmintic activities and so on. Methodology: The starting material SBS was synthesized by microwave irradiation of o-phenylenediamine and anthranilic acid mixture in presence of polyphosphoric acid. SBS was further derivatized to Schiff bases (SBS-a-m) by reacting with various substituted aromatic aldehydes. The in-vitro antibacterial and anti-fungal activity was carried out by the agar diffusion method using Ampicillin and Miconazole nitrate respectively as standards at a concentration of 50µg/0.1ml. Outcome: SBS-k was found to be most active on all the bacteria used and SBS-e showed good activity against both Gram-positive bacteria and moderate activity against both Gram-negative bacteria. No compound showed significant antifungal activity.

46-56

Authors: Francis M Saleshier*, Sajna Hameed, Jubina Karim, and Mythri.M

Plan: The present study focuses on the structure based drug design approach for anticancer activity of various substituted benzothiazoles whether as an EGFR TK inhibitor or as topoisomerase inhibitor. Preface: The development of novel therapeutic agents for the treatment of cancer is of vital importance since the currently available chemotherapeutic agents only provide palliative care. Benzothiazoles are multitarget agents with broad spectrum of biological activity. Topoisomerase II inhibitors are in clinical use as anticancer therapy for decades and works by stabilizing the enzyme induced DNA breaks. Methodology: Computer aided drug design brings out the molecular study of the enzymes and the various other targets, it opens the new world of drug discovery into a target specific path of a drug towards disease. The Insilico method mainly includes the target selection, selection of lead and the lead optimization. Outcome: Docking results confirmed the possibility of benzothiazole moiety possessing the anticancer activity. The structure was finally characterized by UV, IR, NMR and Mass spectra. In the present work the tumorigenic cell line activity of the substituted benzothiazole is compared with the two standard drugs Gefitinib and Doxorubicin by an Invitro assay against Dalton’s Lymphoma Ascites cell using trypan blue dye and percentage inhibition was calculated.