Medicinal chemical information purpose

Development of a safe and useful drug, which is the ultimate goal of medicinal chemistry, is an extremely complex and costly process. The purpose of medicinal chemical information retrieval is to support this process, to permit rapid and accurate identification of clinically useful compounds with minimal risk, cost, or delay. The types of information required to provide this support are extensive and diverse. The exact types of data needed will be discussed in more detail later, but some generalizations can be made about the way the data must be used. 

This volume of the series Medicinal Plants of the World Chemical Constituents, Modern and Traditional Medicinal Uses contains information on 16 plant species and follows the same format as volumes 1 and 2. Some of the plants discussed in volume 3 may be considered controversial in their classification as medicinal. However, the Paracelsian dictum that sola dosis fecit venenum has been appreciated since ancient times, and throughout the ages many highly toxic materials used for lethal purposes have also found applications in modern medicine. It has been recognized that plants contain substances that are either harmful or toxic. However, it is wrong to think that there are plant toxins that are known or that are likely to have adverse effects on any and every form of life. A common feature of most toxic plants is that they are also known for their curative properties, and although they may provide the cure for an individual s disease at one dose, they may cause the death of the same individual at another. 

Oceans are the Earth s most valuable natural resources, which provide majority of the food in the form of fish and shellfish (about 200billion pounds are caught each year). Oceans are the richest resource for numerous biomedically important chemical as well as the protein molecules, which are ranging from the general medication purposes to the specific therapeutic applications (Jimeno, 2002 Vo and Kim, 2010). While the use of floristic resources in traditional medicine has been widely explored, there is a paucity of information regarding the utilization of faunistic resources (Alves and Rosa, 2006), and as such, the medical value of animal species has not been included in the calculations of economic value of biodiversity by the World Conservation Union (IUCN) (Alves et al., 2009 Pearce and Moran, 1994). 

Although we have access to an enormous amount of information, the quality and reproducibility of data varies considerably. Governmental and regulatory influences have not provided any guarantees as to the accuracy of data related to xenobiotics and the researcher needs to understand the purpose and mandates behind an information resource to fully evaluate the data contained within. For example, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) Registry of Toxic Effects of Chemical Substances (RTECS) criteria for selection of data is not based on the reproducibility of that data. Other sources, such as the National Library of Medicine s Hazardous Substances Databank (HSDB), present information compiled from a wide variety of source materials that are extensively reviewed by experts. 

Medicinal plants, plants used for eating purposes and other natural products, are mainly complex products with several components with different chemical and pharmacological characteristics. In addition, many of these products are also sold as dietary supplements, but scientific information about their safe and effective use is hard to find because limited toxicological data are available on herbal remedies and the support of rigorous clinical studies is lacking. A few reports of the toxicological evaluation in Baccharis species are available. 

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