19, Aug 2011

Many species of plants are known for their medicinal properties, and in India such plants are found in great abundance. They have been extensively used by the nation’s age-old medical systems of Ayurveda, Siddha, and Unani. Homeopathic and Allopathic systems too make use of drugs of vegetable origin.

Phytochemicals are non-nutritive plant chemicals that have preventive and curative properties. The complex chemical substances of varied composition in plants offer these properties. Many ongoing studies are focused on discovering potent herbal drugs. To promote its pharmaceutical and phytochemical industry, India needs to conduct extensive research in this fertile area of medicinal and aromatic plants.

The premier institution in this field functions under the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research: Central Institute of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants (CIMAP), Lucknow. Established in 1959, CIMAP has research centers in Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pantnagar, and Purara. The institute conducts multidisciplinary high-quality research in biological and chemical sciences. The institute takes technologies and services to farmers and entrepreneurs. CIMAP has released several varieties of medicinal and aromatic plants and their complete agro-technology and post-harvest packages, revolutionizing the cultivation and business potential. For example, it was CIMAP that was behind India becoming a global leader in mint varieties.

Divisions

Agronomy: Agro-technologies for economically important medicinal and aromatic plants (MAPs) by introduction, domestication, crop geometry, and nutrient management, with emphasis on designing and perfecting new cropping systems of MAPs with food, vegetable, and spice crops, water management, weed management, and growth hormones for yield enhancement.

Soil Science: Onsite-specific fertilizer and manure requirement, fertilizer management of commercially important medicinal and aromatic crops, soil fertility evaluation, “phytoremediation” of heavy metal polluted soil, “rhizosphere” microbiology of “sodic” and heavy metal polluted soils, fertilizer and nutrient requirement and their management for the cultivation of MAPs, and problem soils affected with salinity, “sodicity,” and metal toxicity.

Biotechnology

Plant Biotechnology: Molecular biology and tissue culture of MAPs, the major activities being expression profiling for metabolic and genetic diversity, DNA markers for breeding and identification genomics for pathway engineering, “artemisinin,” “withanolide,” and morphine biosynthesis, in vitro operations and manipulations.
Molecular Bio-prospection: Bio-prospecting natural resources for novel genes and value-added products, solutions for drug-resistant infections and metabolic disorders, and safety limits of herbal preparations/products.

Chemical Sciences

Phytochemistry: Extracting, isolating, and purifying the compounds of medicinal and aromatic plants by employing classical and modern chromatography, chemical processing of waste plant material for the development of technologies useful in the production of bio-energy structure, and elucidation of purified natural products. Dozens of medicinal and aromatic plants have been investigated and hundreds of new and known compounds have been isolated and characterized.
Analytical Chemistry: Isolation of chemical and bioactive marker compounds, development of chromatographic and molecular methods for quality assurance of specific chemotypic herbs and herbal formulations, semi-synthesis and synthesis of bioactive natural products, and isolation and characterization of phytochemicals.
Process Chemistry and Chemical Engineering: Providing scientific and technical support to researchers, scientists, entrepreneurs, and industries in the areas of processing of MAPs.

Crop Protection

Plant Pathology: Investigations on diseases caused by fungal, bacterial, viral, phytoplasma, and ergot production, epidemiology and etiology of diseases, and potential utilization of beneficial microbes for the development of bio-fertilizers and bio-pesticides.
Microbial Technology and Entomology: Microbes useful as bio-fungicides, bio-nematicides and bio-fertilizers for biotic and abiotic stresses, and microbes for industrial use.
Microbial Management of Plant Diseases: Integrated pest management strategies, and search for novel natural molecules as bio-pesticides and bio-nematicides for reducing pre- and post-harvest losses.

Genetics

Plant Breeding: Genetic improvement of MAPs, application of recombination, Cloline, mutation, polyploidy, and molecular approaches for qualitative and quantitative breeding of MAPs, utilization of biometrical, population, and association genetics to realize genetic improvement of MAPs, general and molecular cytogenetics, DNA marker resources, and molecular phylogenetics.

Genetic Resource Management: The focus of the department is management of genetic resources of MAPs.

Plant biology

Metabolic and Structural Biology: Combining work groups of biochemists, molecular biologists, and bioinformaticians and focusing on secondary metabolism, biological interactions of secondary metabolites, and pathway analyses. It offers opportunities to research scholars interested in pursuing the cutting-edge science of such blends and interfaces, with anomics, functional genomics, stress biology of secondary metabolism, exploration of drug potential of selected objects, general and molecular cytogenetics, DNA marker resources, and molecular phylogenetics.

Plant Physiology and Biochemistry: The department’s focus is on basic research regarding the physiological aspects affecting plant growth and accumulation of secondary metabolites in some important MAPs.

Taxonomy and Pharmacognosy: Survey and resource mapping of MAPs from different phyto-geographical zones of India, conservation and domestication of rare and endangered MAPs, taxonomic and pharmacognostic authentication, evaluation and standardization of MAPs and herbal drugs, ethno-botanical survey and recording of tribal and folklore uses of MAPs, and enrichment and maintenance of herbarium and herbal drug repository.

CIMAP has two more divisions — Information and Project Management and Technology Business Development.

Centers

CIMAP’s Bangalore center is a field station looking into the various aspects of MAPs from agronomy to breeding to phytochemistry, with focus on Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and Andhra Pradesh.

The work includes agrotechnology and genetic improvement of economically important MAPs, micro-propagation, in vitro conservation, and crop improvement of MAPs through tissue culture techniques, effect of phyto-chemicals on functionally annotated human genes, lipidomics, transcriptomics, and metabolomics of MAPs using yeast as model systems, and “phytoremediation” using MAPs.

The Hyderabad center researches MAPs that are economically important, exploring areas such as agro-technology, varietal development, distillation of aromatic crops, byproduct utilization, and wasteland and dryland development under resource constraint conditions.

Genetic Improvement

The Pantnagar center in Uttarakhand conducts genetic improvement of MAPs, agro-technology development, and planting material production. The Purara center in Uttarakhand conducts collection, conservation, domestication, and characterization of MAPs.