HEALTH |
Nature’s medicine plants and traditional practices Prof Namrita Lall, a medicinal plant scientist in the Department of Plant Science in the Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences, and her research team have explored and tested the use of indigenous plants to determine those that could possibly provide chemical compounds that could be of benefit to people.
C
onsidering South Africa’s immense biodiversity, particular methods are
required to identify plants that may be of specific medicinal value. One such approach is ethno-botanical selection where the plant-use habits of indigenous communities are studied. Indeed, it was the wealth of information that already existed on South Africa’s indigenous medicine that served as the starting point for Prof Lall’s research. The research team has found promise in a plant traditionally used by indigenous communities to treat chest pains and the symptoms of TB. The research has attracted a number of national and international cosmeceutical companies that are willing to commercialise South African plant extracts and purified compounds that have emanated from the research. The key national benefit of the research is in bridging the gap between farmers, researchers and customers. Communities have had few opportunities to develop local indigenous crops due to the inability of researchers to transfer their knowledge to market and create a
Prof Namrita Lall received the prestigious Order of Mapungubwe Presidential Award in 2014 for outstanding research in medical sciences. More recently she was awarded the SARChI Chair in Indigenous Knowledge Systems.
demand for the farmers’ crops.
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