The ins and outs of pharmacognosy: Plants for health and beauty

Implicit in the word pharmacognosy is the concept that plants provided the first source and recognition of medicinal substances. For thousands of years, sages and healers, shamans, herbalists and clinicians have been honing the use of plants as medicines for internal and external applications. While modern medicine and even many dietary supplements often pursue highly purified single compounds, profound lessons are still to be discovered in crude plant materials. Relatively unrefined plant extracts like buriti oil and turmeric are complex in their chemistry and are used traditionally as foods and as effective topical treatments for the skin. Modern ingredients created from such plants for supplements or cosmetics range from pure compounds to minimally-refined botanicals, and cGMP requirements are vital to help guide production of quality products, but it is imperative to start the process with a sustainable, high quality plant. This presentation will emphasize the roles a pharmacognosist can play in the sourcing supply chain of botanicals as well as their effective application from the perspective of basic academic research as well as the cosmetic industry.