An ethnobotanical, phytochemical and metabolomics investigstion of plants from the Paulshoek Communal Area, Namaqualand

The aim of this thesis is to investigate medicinal plants from different perspectives in an attempt to arrive at a new, integrated and streamlined method for the discovery of bioactive secondary metabolites of plant origin. This will be done through a focused study of the traditionally used medicinal plants of the Paulshoek region of Namaqualand and a demographic study of the people who use them. Trends in traditional medicinal plant choice will be investigated and methods of traditional knowledge acquisition and transfer will be examined. Additional assessment of bioactivity and trends in bioactivity will be conducted and a variety of physico-chemical and computational techniques will be used to determine the major metabolites present in selected plant species. These different approaches to medicinal plants will be brought together in a single holistic method put forward as a possible way of conducting future studies into discovering active metabolites for potential drug development.

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

Department of Chemistry

Year dc:date.issued

2014

Author dc:creator

• Wheat, Nicola M

Advisors dc:contributor.advisor

• Gammon, David W
• Hoffman, Timm
• Chibale, Kelly

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/11427/9541

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/9541