Isolating anti-Alzheimer's compounds in plants
Traditional plant medicines have been used by humans for a long time, and these therapies are still popular in many countries. Plants typically contain a huge variety of compounds, many of which have no effect in the body, and some which can have significant effects. If a plant medicine shows a therapeutic effect, scientists are interested in isolating and identifying the compounds that cause the effect to see if they can be used as new drugs. In many cases, scientists repeatedly screen crude plant medicines in lab experiments to see if any compounds show a particular effect in cells grown in a dish or in cell-free assays. If a compound shows a positive effect in cells or test tubes, it could potentially be used as a drug, and the scientists go on to test it in animals. However, this process is a lot of work and doesn't account for changes that can happen to drugs when they enter the body -- enzymes in the blood and liver can metabolize drugs into various forms called metaboli...