[12-30]Sustainable Medicinal Plants

报告题目：Sustainable Medicinal Plants——Our Treasure in the Past and in the Future: Case study of active natural products from herbs and their mechanism action.
报 告 人：许敏 博士 (The State Key Laboratory of Phytochemistry and Plant Resources in West China, Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences）
报告时间：2014年12月30日（星期二）上午10:00
报告地点：独墅湖校区二期云轩楼2301室

报告摘要：
Natural products are important sources for the exploration of new drugs. To date, more than 60% drugs come from natural products directly or indirectly. Chinese people have over 3000 years of history in using plants to treat some obstinate illness. In the past decades, some leading compounds have been found from tranditional herbs. While it is still a big challenge to explore the exact active compounds from the herbs and find the mechanisms behind it. Here, this report will show some story on the research of natural products from medicinal plants through two case studies of active natural products and their mechanism action. One example is searching for the novel antiviral compounds from the Phyllanthus plants which is wildly used to treat hepatitis in China and India. Another one is exploring the anti-seizure activities compounds from Asclepiadaceae family, which is used for the treatment of epilepsy in Yunnan province, China.

报告人简介：
Dr. Min XU received her Ph.D. degree at the State Key Laboratory of Phytochemistry and Plant Resources in West China, Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, in 2007. Afterwards, she undertook research work as a postdoctoral fellow at the Institut de Chimie des Substances Naturelles, ICSN-CNRS, Paris, FRANCE. Then, she followed Prof. Ronald J. Quinn, the member of the Australia National Academy of Sciences, as a research fellow at Eskitis Institute for Cell and Molecular Therapies, Griffith University, Australia. In Jan. 2011, she went back china and worked as an associate professor at State Key Laboratory of Phytochemistry and Plant Resources in West China, Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences. She has explored diverse natural products from different kind of plants in the past decade. The bioactivities as well as the mechanism of those active natural products were investigated. A few of novel skeletons, which had potential anti-viral activities, were discovered by Dr. Xu. Moreover, two novel compounds showed the promoting anti-epileptic activity. The results suggested that one of them might modulate the M-current by influencing on KCNQ2/3 potassium channels on neuron. It is a new natural scaffold with anti-epileptic activity might be a potential leading compound for the medicine treating of epilepsy.