International Workshop on Ethnomedicinal Abundance of Western Africa: Understanding and Preserving the Value of Regional Traditional Natural Medicines.
From February 05th to 10th an international workshop on ethnomedical research in West Africa took place in Cotonou, Benin. This conference has been joint-organized by the University of Leipzig and the University of Münster (Institute of Pharmaceutical Biology and Phytochemistry) to discuss strategies for harmonization of scientific work on traditional natural medicine in Western Africa. As this region of Africa has an extraordinary tradition in using plant-derived medicines against numerous diseases, the scientific investigation and modernisation of these remedies is of high interest. 29 representative scientists from Germany, U.K., Norway, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Benin and Nigeria met together with about 30 PhD students (for which a separate program has been developed) to discuss in detail what actions should be taken into account to harmonize the work in the different countries and how these studies can be performed in close collaboration to improve the scientific outcome.
In particular, the questions addressed were how to collect information from traditional healers, to identify the botanical properties of the plants used for preparation of the respective medicines, to characterize the phytochemical composition of these plants, to develop and validate standardized analytical methods for improved quality control, to perform pharmacological and toxicological studies on the respective preparations, to initiate pilot clinical studies to rationalize the effectiveness of the herbal materials for defined diseases and to create a platform for the development of a manufacture of modern drug preparations for the West African countries. 6 working groups planned the respective activities, which will be summarized in a consensus paper and published in a peer reviewed journal on medicinal plant research to stimulate further activities on this very special topic.
Additionally, the workshop included a hands on training of the PhD students in modern analytical techniques (held by Dr. Verena Spiegler from IPBP), in botanical identification of plants within field studies and details on how field studies have to be performed to meet international standards. Besides Prof. Hensel, who gave a keynote lecture and organized the working groups, Dr. Spiegler who organized the analytical workshop, also Joshua Jaobtorweihen, a student of Pharmaceutical Sciences from WWU Münster, was part of the IPBP delegation. The meeting, which took place at the Inter-Regional University of Industrial Engineering, Biotechnology and Applied Sciences was sponsored by the Volkswagen Stiftung, Germany.
