BOTANY AND PHARMACOGNOSY
Academic year and teacher
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- Versione italiana
- Academic year
- 2022/2023
- Teacher
- ALESSANDRA GUERRINI
- Credits
- 9
- Didactic period
- Secondo Semestre
- SSD
- BIO/15
Training objectives
- Knowledges: concept of superior and inferior plant organism. Plant anatomy, histology and cytology as tools to acquire knowledge and understanding of the Plant Kingdom and as source to inspire new pharmaceutically important bio-molecules. Medicinal plants, crude drugs and related active chemicals of current pharmaceutical importance. Main factors affecting the pharmaceutical uses of plant sources and crude drugs, and of the main protocols to assess the quality control.
Skills: capacity to recognize the main groups of plant and crude drugs of pharmaceutical importance, to analyze in a critical way the plant-crude drug production chain. Capacity to qualify the pharmaceutical use of plants or crude drugs through the identification and characterization of the biological matter and active compounds. Capacity to upgrade the knowledge on the natural sources of crude drugs and active molecules for pharmaceutical uses Prerequisites
- Basic knowledge of the main primary metabolites and the most important cellular constituents
Course programme
- The course comprises 76 hours of teaching, divided into 64 hours of lectures and 12 hours of laboratory exercises.
The lectures will cover the following topics
- Plant morphogenesis. Autotrophic and heterotrophic organisms. Cytology: The prokaryotic and eukaryotic cell. The elective structures of the plant cell (vacuole, plastids, cell wall) and their biological and pharmaceutical function. The plant cell as a laboratory for the production of compounds of pharmaceutical importance: biological (hints at primary and secondary metabolism) and pharmaceutical aspects (10 hours).
Histology: meristematic, adult or definitive tissues (8 hours).
Histological anatomy of roots, stems (in primary and secondary structure) and leaves. Organography of leaves, flowers, fruits, seeds. Hints on reproduction. Pharmaceutical importance of histology and anatomy in the recognition of plants and drugs and in the production and accumulation of active principles (10 hours).
- Plant systematics. Fundamentals of plant systematics. Main families of food, medicinal and poisonous plants (4 hours).
- Relationship between plants and the environment. Plant biodiversity. Relationship of plants to the environment and other living beings. Factors influencing the quality and quantity of active ingredients. Wild and cultivated medicinal plants. Good cultivation and harvesting practices. Import and export of medicinal plants and drugs, the production chain in a circular economy perspective (outline) (10 hours).
- Plant drugs. Concept of medicinal plant, part used and crude drug. Storage and contamination of drugs, drug preparation, extraction of phytocomplexes and active ingredients. Good manufacturing standards. Qualitative-quantitative control of a drug: botanical and phytochemical quality control assays in the European Pharmacopoeia. Herbal supplements and outline of current legislation (14 hours).
- Monographs of medicinal plants. Plant secondary metabolism as a source of natural pharmaceutical compounds and derivatives by hemisynthesis: main chemical classes of active ingredients. Examples of drug monographs characterised by the content of metabolites of health interest: carbohydrate and fat drugs, glycoside drugs, terpene drugs, alkaloid drugs, proteolytic enzyme drugs. Efficacy and safety (8 hours).
- Laboratory. Some general European Pharmacopoeia assays on plant drugs will be carried out, in particular macro and microscopic botanical identity check, loss on drying, determination of foreign elements. Cross-sections of plant organs will also be prepared and observed under the microscope (12 hours). Didactic methods
- The teaching method is based on the frontal lesson: it makes use of projected slides, diagrams facilitating the study of the subject illustrated on the blackboard, as a guide to the course, which can be found in textbooks and material published by the lecturer in the course classroom.
Some videos found on the web and specialised sites will be presented. The structure of the lessons is based on an interactive teacher-student dialogue. Some laboratory experiences will support the learning of the theoretical contents. Learning assessment procedures
- The examination consists of oral verification of the achievement of the learning objectives, through both broad and specific questions on 2 main teaching blocks: 1) plant morphogenesis and plant systematics, 2) monographs of medicinal plants, plant drugs and the relationship between plants and the environment. The minimum mark is 18/30, the maximum 30 cum laude.
The student is also allowed to access an additional learning verification option. At the end of the lectures on the teaching blocks of plant morphogenesis and plant systematics, an optional, non-repeatable written test is offered: if the student achieves a minimum score of 18/30 he/she is admitted to the oral test on the teaching block of medicinal plant monographs, plant drugs and the relationship between plants and the environment. The final mark will be the average of the marks of the two partial tests. The test consists of 4 types of questions: 10 multiple-choice, 30 true-false, 30 with sentence completion, 2 open-ended. The time is 1 hour. The written test remains valid until the end of the winter session in February 2024. Reference texts
- Poli F. - Biologia Farmaceutica (Biologia vegetale, botanica farmaceutica, fitochimica) II edizione - Pearson, Italia, 2019.
