Screening of bioactive compounds from Cucurbitaceae family edible plants of Bangladesh - Cucurbita pepo Linn.: A case study

Medicinal plants are rich sources of bioactive compounds and thus serve as important raw material for drug production. It has been established that those plants synthesize and accumulate some secondary metabolites like alkaloids, glycosides, tannins, volatile oils etc. that may possess a great potential for biological activity and can be a curative agent in therapeutic purposes. Medicinal plants are also related to modern medicine. Some preparations may also contain substances other than the drug for the purpose of increasing therapeutic effect and decreasing adverse effects. Therapeutic use of plants continued with the progress of civilization and development of human knowledge. Scientists endeavored to isolate different constituents from plants and put them into the biological system and perform pharmacological tests to identify and isolate therapeutically active compounds, which have been used to prepare modern medicine. Most companies are involved in producing synthetic drugs, but the synthetic drugs' overlong use has started serious side effects to manifest themselves, so even in the developed countries the interest for natural drugs and natural foods is reviving and we may pay attention to our herbs and medicinal plants.

I am Shibam Mondal, completed Bachelor of Pharmacy and Masters of Pharmacy from Khulna university, Bangladesh. Now i am working as a formulation scientist in The ACME Laboratories Ltd. Dhaka Bangladesh. My interests are formulation development, process development, process optimization and technology transfer of pharmaceutical solid oral dosage forms.