Bioprospecting for drug research and functional foods for the prevention of diseases—Role of flavonoids in drug development

Abstract

Bioprospecting is the exploitation of wild diversity (natural bioresources) in search for useful resources such as medicines. Research in the area of chemistry of natural products when coupled with sources of local traditional medicines and aided by pharmacological and antimicrobial studies may lead to the development of newer and effective drugs. Studies of the functional foods such as broccoli, garlic, citrus fruits, onions, oat, soy, tea, etc. may help in the prevention of diseases such as cancer, coronary heart diseases, inflammation, allergy, etc. The pharmacological activities of flavonoids are gaining importance with newer findings on the beneficial health effects. Flavonoids possess radical scavenging properties. There is a wide scope for integrating natural products based pharmaceutical industries with fuel and energy industries dealing with petrocrops, biodiesel, etc. Convenient synthesis of natural products may pave the way for the scale up and process development engineering.