Phytochemical research needs to break through the "bottleneck period"

Sunhandong, academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences: phytochemistry research needs to break through the "bottleneck period"

Original: Gaoyali China Science Daily 1 week ago

Author | Gaoyali

"At present, the research level of Phytochemistry in China has changed from 'following' to 'running together', and some groups of plants or types of natural products have entered the 'leading' list.At the same time, the research of Phytochemistry in China has also encountered great challenges. The academic community hopes to discover new frameworks, compounds with new structures and their biological functions. The government administration also expects researchers to find more lead compounds with potential application prospects and develop more drugs that can prevent and treat diseases. "

Recently, sunhandong, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, made this judgment on the research status of Phytochemistry in China.

So, at a time when the development of Phytochemistry research is relatively slow, how should Chinese phytochemistry researchers recognize and deal with this "bottleneck period"?

Sunhandong said, "we must have confidence. To discover more phytochemical components with development and application prospects, we must closely combine with modern biology, modern pharmacology, various omics and other disciplinary means, tell the 'Science Story' clearly, and finally find the potential development and utilization value."

In fact, there are about 300000 species of higher plants in the world. After more than 200 years of efforts, the world's natural product chemists have only explored the secondary metabolites of 5000~6000 of them to varying degrees.

"It is precisely because of the continuous innovation of research platforms, methods and means that we cannot consider that we have understood the secondary metabolites contained in every plant. Nor does it mean that the value of these compounds is denied after the screening of several conventional pharmacological models without finding any biological activity. The more new types, new frameworks and new structures of compounds are found, the better. Therefore, promoting the development of natural product chemistry is still the responsibility and responsibility of Chinese scientific and technological workers." sunhandong pointed out.

At the same time, sunhandong mentioned that although China currently has a huge natural product chemistry research team and produces a large number of research papers every year, the road of new drug research and development is difficult. What is the reason?

Sunhandong said, "if we want to continue to advance the research, we must first have enough samples to further carry out preclinical pharmacology, pharmacokinetics and other related research. However, from a few kilograms or even dozens of kilograms of plant samples, researchers often can only obtain milligram, hundred milligram or gram level samples, which cannot meet the needs of new drug research and development. In addition, it is very difficult to find a drug 'leader' and the current relatively lagging promotion and assessment standards will make the road of new drug research and development more difficult. "

For this reason, he suggested that with the support of relevant government departments, it is necessary to concentrate on in-depth research on genuine medicinal materials with clear curative effects and characteristics in all parts of China, and fully understand the chemical substance basis and biological functions of these medicinal plants, so as to provide a solid scientific basis for further research and development of new drugs and interpretation of the biological functions and clinical efficacy of Chinese patent medicines with them as raw materials.

Sunhandong said that most of the active ingredients of every genuine or local medicinal material are not just a single component, but several or several kinds of compounds play a synergistic role through "monarchs, ministers and envoys".

"At present, we can only explore the relationship between formulas on the basis of safety and effectiveness, and try to understand some chemical components as much as possible, and give scientific data about the composition and its efficacy in pharmacology." sunhandong said.

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After more than 10 years of development and accumulation, Chengdu Biopurify Phytochemicals Ltd. At present, more than 2000 chemical components of more than 200 traditional Chinese medicines have been accumulated, which areThe development and scientific research services of Phytochemistry in China have made their own unique contributions。

China Science Journal (2019-12-20, 3rd Edition comprehensive)

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Phytochemical research needs to break through the "bottleneck period"

Sunhandong, academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences: phytochemistry research needs to break through the "bottleneck period"

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