Medicinal Plant Research Funded

GUELPH - Jan 27/04 - SNS -- A university of Guelph professor has received a $1 million grant to continue research into medicinal plant production techniques.

Praveen Saxena, from the Department of Plant Agriculture, and collaborator Prof. Mike Dixon, director of the Ontario university's Controlled Environment Systems Research Facility (CESRF), hope to perfect techniques for the mass propagation of plantlets in tightly controlled conditions and the production of natural health products.

The research can help Ontario's horticulture industry develop consistent and environmentally clean sources of medicinal plants – something now ordered by law. New federal regulations introduced this month require producers of natural health products to provide clinical evidence for health claims, including ensuring that the products contain clean compounds. The requirements, which Health Canada is phasing in over several years, affect vitamins and minerals, herbal remedies, homeopathic medicines and other products.

Saxena is developing protocols for growing hundreds of thousands of plants from tiny bits of tissue, cleanly and consistently. "The plant is often the most-neglected part of plant-based medicines," he said. He hopes that this research will lead to an entirely new type of horticultural industry in Ontario and access to a huge export market of high-quality medicinal plants used in herbal products.

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