The course is designed to provide the student with the basic information about pharmacognosy & phytochemistry, in terms of nomenclature, taxonomy, monographs, quality control, methods for extraction, characterization, detection of active ingredient in medicinal plants, complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), pharmacologically active compounds obtained from natural origin mainly plant origin, secondary metabolites as alkaloids, cardiac glycosides and anthraquinone glycosides. The chemical structures of these studied phytochemicals will be granted much interest. The student has to recognize the chemical structure mostly with its main features, and is expected to be able to relate it to its botanical source, use, toxicity and interactions with other drugs. Special emphasis will be made on those products used in pharmacy as prescription only medicine, controlled drugs and OTC. The course also has a mention of examples of semi-synthetic or synthetic drugs related to naturally occurring drugs, such as opium alkaloids.

This course will provide students with the knowledge of:

1- Pharmacognosy including: taxonomy of the official naturally occurring crude drugs, the major official references, The course explains the methods used for the production of secondary metabolites in vitro by plant tissue and cell culture which is widely used these days for production of secondary metabolites

2- The course will provide the biosynthetic pathways for the formation of the above secondary metabolites

3- The knowledge of the mechanism of action and structure activity relationship of these constituents is explained. The therapeutic value and toxicology of these natural constituents is also discussed.