Ethnopharmacognosy of Medicinal Plants: Challenges and Biotechnological Advancements

Ethnopharmacognosy represents a multidisciplinary research field, drawing insights from various disciplines and scientific methods. It shares a close association with integrative medicine, exploring the significance of ethnomedicine in healthcare and complementary therapies across diverse domains. The collaborative approaches employed have the potential to enhance healthcare safety, fostering sustainable well-being in marginalized regions. This chapter delves into ethnopharmacognosy, emphasizing anthropological perspectives on plant utilization and the process of drug development from ethnomedicine. The exploration begins with the validation of ethnomedicines, tracing the research development in ancestral medicine. The chapter also discusses traditional medicine-inspired approaches to drug development, intellectual property rights, biodiversity conservation, and transformative research and development paradigms such as Ayurgenomics, ayurvedic practices, ethnopharmacognosy, network pharmacology, reverse pharmacology, etc. These strategies prove effective in discovering novel drugs from ethnopharmacognosy, showcasing interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary connections leading to nature-based and ancestral drug discoveries.