MRC postdoctoral student

Level of study: postdoctoral

Title: Comparison of South African Medicinal Plants using HPLC fingerprinting

Background: PhD in Organic Chemistry, Rhodes University

Research Question: Develop synthesis and upscaling methodologies for the antiplasmodially active sesquiterpene dimers. To also develop analytical HPLC method for the qualitative analysis and chromatographic differentiation of plant parts of plants and different plant species.

Project summary:  Traditional medicinal plants are used in traditional medicine for management and prevention of different disease conditions. For those medicinal plants and traditional medicines that have a potential for exploitation, these would be required in large commercial scales and stress would be put on those wild harvested plants. Isolation of lead molecules from plants would not support the industrial scale needs for the supply of these molecules. There is therefore a need for the synthesis of these lead molecules for clinical and industrial research. The other aspect is traditional medicines use in most cases bark or underground parts of plants. This has a conservation impact and new methods are required that can show that there are differences between plant parts as there may be marked differences for substitute plants.

Dr Molefe project is looking at the 5 medicinal plants that compose the traditional medicines used for HIV and AIDS and against malaria to answer these research questions. Currently Dr Molefe is at Emory University, in Atlanta as an exchange program student between Emory University and IKS Lead Programme through the support of NRF and DST. At Emory University she is being trained in protein engineering as part of drug discovery. Her work involves enzyme kinetics using monoamine oxidases of human and rat origin. The project is looking at designing drugs or lead molecules that would mimic substrates that inhibit these enzymes. The work would be very valuable to find molecules of plant origin that can be used to develop drugs for Alzheimers disease, depression and Parkinsons disease.

Supervisor & Mentor: Dr MG Matsabisa
Support: MRC/DST Professional Development Programme (PDP)
MRC Unit: Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS)