Phytochemical Profiling of Commercially Important South African Plants

Phytochemical Profiling of Commercially Important South African Plants comprises a carefully selected group of plant species that are of interest to researchers and industry partners who would like to investigate the commercialization of plant species. The book presents 25 botanicals selected based on commercial relevance. For each of the species, the following topics are covered: botanical description and distribution, phytochemistry (including chemical structures), HPTLC fingerprint analysis, UPLC analysis, and GC analysis (the latter only in the case of essential oil-bearing species). Using standard methodology, high-level chromatographic fingerprints have been developed for better understanding. Different methods are succinctly summarized allowing for the rapid identification of botanical raw materials and formulated consumer products. This book will be extremely valuable to researchers in the field who wish to rapidly identify the constituents and for those who want to prepare formulations of plant material for commercial applications. This work will also be a valuable resource in the field of pharmacognosy. - Comprehensive chemical profiling of each species - Fingerprints developed for non-volatile and volatile constituents - Methods succinctly summarized to ensure reproducibility

Dr. Alvaro Vijoen completed a BSc, BSc Hons. (cum laude) and MSc (cum laude) in Botany at Stellenbosch University (SA). In 1994 Alvaro commenced with a PhD at the University of Johannesburg on the chemotaxonomy of the genus Aloe. In July 2005 he was appointed as a research fellow in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Tshwane University of Technology (Pretoria). More than eighty post-graduate students have graduated under his supervision since 2002. His research interest is the phytochemistry and biological activity of medicinal and aromatic plants indigenous to South Africa. He has authored / co-authored >250 peer reviewed papers mostly on the phytochemical exploration and pharmacological activity of indigenous medicinal and aromatic plants. He has been elected on to the editorial board of the Journal of Essential Oil Research (Francis & Taylor), Phytochemistry Letters (Elsevier) etc , and he is the Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Ethnopharmacology (Elsevier). In October 2013 Alvaro was awarded the National Research Chair in Phytomedicine a position which he holds concurrently as Director of the SAMRC Herbal Drugs Research Unit in South Africa.