Phytochemistry Department |
|
The department was started in 1986 as Research Laboratory, and in 1991 re-organised and named the Phytochemistry Department to reflect the nature of its activities.
Functions
- Phytochemical screening of herbal products
- Isolation and characterization of phyto-constituents from plants
- The standardization of herbal products
- Formulation of herbal preparations
Activities
- The Department screen herbal preparations to determine data on
organoleptic and physicochemical profiling of herbal products
including the identification of classes of compounds present.
Combining phytochemical screening and toxicity studies with
microbiological tests on herbal preparations provides information
to the Food and Drugs Board authority for certification of herbal
products.Over 250 herbal products are analysed by the department
annually.
- Standardization of herbal preparations, which is an aspect of
quality control, involves the development and validation of analytical
and chemical methods for the determination of identity and purity of
herbal products. Various standardization parameters including solvent
extractive values, organoleptic evaluation, volatile matters, marker
compounds, chromatographic profiles, spectroscopic profiles and foreign
matters are studied
- Formulation of herbal preparations is designed to search for
formulations of extracts from plants that have recorded history
of use based on the ethno-pharmacological information obtained
by analyzing literature. The initiative represents a
multi-disciplinary cross-professional approach in the area of
research. It includes elements of agrobotany, phytochemistry,
microbiology, pharmacology and toxicology.
- The Department provides training facilities and train students from
various universities and polytechnics, both local and foreign on
attachment. Some personnel from the Department supervise
post-graduate projects and do part-time teaching at the University
of Ghana.
|
