Medicinal Chemistry

Urgent need to study medicinal plants

1. To rescue knowledge in imminent danger
of being lost
Inventory by WHO found 20,000 plant
species in use for medicine in 90 countries
Only 250 of those species are commonly used
or have been checked for main active
chemical compounds

Urgent need to study medicinal plants

2. The utility of plants in current therapy
There has been a rush to develop synthetic
medicines based on plant medicines, but
often the synthetic medicines dont work
as well as the original plant medicines.
For example quinine and malaria

Efficacy of Quinine
Quinine is traditional and effective preventative of
malaria
Synthetic preventatives such as chloroquine,
maloprim, and fansidar have largely replaced the
use of quinine
Many strains of Plasmodium have developed
resistances to the synthetics and the synthetics are
more toxic. It is recommended that people do not
take fansidar for more than 3 months due to
potential liver damage.

Malaria Cycle

Anopheles freeborni mosquito intermediate

host and vector for Plasmodium sp.

Historical distribution of Malaria

Red areas show countries with malaria today

One of the sources of Quinine

Cinchona succirubra

Cinchona pubescens

Timeline of Quinine Use

1633, a Jesuit priest named Father Calancha described how
to use quinine bark to cure fevers
1645 Father Bartolome Tafur took some bark to Rome and
many of the clergy used it
Cardinal John de Lugo wrote a pamphlet to be distributed
with the bark - use of the bark became so widespread that
in the papal conclave of 1655 no one died of malaria
1654 English aware of use of quinine bark
1735, a French botanist named Joseph de Jussieu journeyed
to South America and found and described the tree that is
the source of the bark - he sent samples to Sweden where
in 1739, Carl Linneaus named the tree genus Cinchona

Timeline of Quinine Use

20 to 40 species of Cinchona - the species are very
hard to tell apart and the species will hybridize, so
the exact number of species is unknown mostly
understorey trees
1820 the French chemists Joseph Pelletier and
Joseph Caventou isolated the alkaloid quinine from
the bark and identified it was the active ingredient in
Peruvian bark
1861, an Australian named Charles Ledger obtained
seeds from an Aymara Indian named Manuel Incra
by 1930, the Dutch orchards in Java produced 22
million pounds of quinine, 97% of the worlds
market

Chemical structure of quinine

Properties of Quinine
Quinine itself is an odorless white powder with an
extremely bitter taste
It can be used to treat cardiac arrhythmias as well
as malaria - it is also used as a flavoring agent
Quinine prevents malaria by suppressing
reproduction of the Plasmodium and also helps
prevent some of the fevers and pain associated
with malaria

Quinine fluoresces under UV light

Raymond Fosberg in the

field in 1948

Cinchona bark drying in the sun in

Ecuador, 1944

Urgent need to study medicinal plants

3. To find new molecular models in plants
Many times we can take a plant chemical and
modify it or make synthetic copies of it that
are very valuable to us.

Lippia dulcis sweetener from

Pre-Columbian America

Lippia as a sweetener
In Pre-Columbian America, several plants of
the genus Lippia were used as sweeteners.
(F. Verbenaceae the verbenas).
In the 20th century, L. dulcis was chemically
analyzed and a new sweetener was found,
hernandulcin, that is 800 to 1000 times
sweeter than sucrose.

Urgent need to study medicinal plants

4. The wide use of plants in folk medicine
One positive aspect of the use of medicinal plants is
their low cost compared to the high price of new
synthetic drugs that are totally inaccessible to the
vast majority of the worlds people. Another
benefit is that most medicinal plants dont have
the kinds of harmful side effects seen with
synthetic drugs.

Plants and Human Cosmologies

Cosmologies
Cosmologies are branches of philosophy
which deal with the origins and structures
of the universe - religions that explain how
the universe formed and our place within it
are one kind (a very powerful kind) of
cosmology

The Oak of Guernica

Basque coat of arms with

Oak of Guernica

Oak of Guernica by Wordsworth - 1810

THE OAK OF GUERNICA

The ancient oak of Guernica, says Laborde in his account of Biscay, is a most
venerable natural monument. Ferdinand and Isabella, in the year 1476, after
hearing mass in the church of Santa Maria de la Antigua, repaired to this tree,
under which they swore to the Biscayans to maintain their "fueros" (privileges).
What other interest belongs to it in the minds of this people will appear from the
following.
SUPPOSED ADDRESS TO THE SAME
OAK of Guernica! Tree of holier power
Than that which in Dodona did enshrine
(So faith too fondly deemed) a voice divine
Heard from the depths of its aerial bower-How canst thou flourish at this blighting hour?
What hope, what joy can sunshine bring to thee,
Or the soft breezes from the Atlantic sea,
The dews of morn, or April's tender shower?
Stroke merciful and welcome would that be
Which should extend thy branches on the ground,
If never more within their shady round
Those lofty-minded Lawgivers shall meet,
Peasant and lord, in their appointed seat,
Guardians of Biscay's ancient liberty.

Guernica by Picasso

The Fall by Michelangelo detail

from ceiling of the Sistine Chapel

Moses and The Burning Bush

The sacred Maori Waka Huia

The sacred Maori Waka Huia

Miro tree Podocarpus ferruginea