Use and processing of medicinal plants. Natural substances in the therapy.
Sources of natural substances.
Production of medicinal plants.
Factors influencing constituents of herbal drugs.
Preservation of medicinal plants.
Storage of medicinal plants and herbal drugs.
Pests and contamination of herbal drugs; aflatoxins.
Quality control of herbal drugs.
Technological processing of herbal drugs for their further use. Procedures and equipment for cutting, grinding, and homogenization.
Manufacturing of herbal teas. Manufacturing process and quality control.
General principles of isolation of substances from plant material. Processing of crude drugs, extraction, concentration, refining, isolation – methods and equipment.
Industrial isolation of natural substances – development of an isolation method, manufacturing of simple standardized extracts and refined extracts.
Isolation of some pharmaceutically important substances – galantamine, paclitaxel, ergot alkaloids, lanatoside C, digoxin, anthocyanins, and silymarin.
Natural substances in modern pharmacy. Secondary metabolites of microorganisms. Drugs produced by means of biotechnological methods. Biopharmaceuticals.
Legislation aspects of medicinal plants and food supplements. Medicinal plants in European Union. Regulation on nutrition and health claims made on foods. Traditional herbal medicinal products and European Union herbal monographs.