Biotechnological Tools for Conservation and Sustainable Utilization of Medicinal Plants

Medicinal plants are used in traditional medicine and healthcare system. But unfortunately, they are disappearing at an alarming rate due to the continuous increase of global population and the increasingly high demand for medicinal plants throughout the world. Due to unusual anthropogenic pressure, overharvesting, poor harvesting practices, pollution, climate change, diseases, slow growth and reproduction, and land degradation, the medicinal plants are going to become endangered, which is a major threat to the disappearance of plant diversity. Therefore, an attempt is made on how to conserve these species by using different biotechnological tools like micropropagation, mycorrhization, genetic transformation, cryopreservation, and somatic embryogenesis, production of secondary metabolites, organogenesis, molecular markers, and DNA bank for sustaining the survival of these plants in the near future.