• Eric J Buenz, David J Schnepple, Brent A Bauer, Peter L Elkin, John M Riddle, and Timothy J Motley.
• Complementary and Integrative Medicine Program, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, Rochester, MN 55905, USA. buenz.eric@mayo.edu
• Trends Pharmacol. Sci. 2004 Sep 1; 25 (9): 494-8.

AbstractEthnobotany has led to the identification of novel pharmacological agents but many challenges to using ethnobotany as a research tool remain. In particular, the loss of traditional knowledge together with the advent of high-throughput screening has made ethnobotanical techniques laborious and potentially unnecessary. However, historical herbal texts provide a preexisting resource that documents the traditional uses of various species as medicines. As generational losses of traditional knowledge accrue, these herbal texts become increasingly valuable. The methodology for extracting useful information contained within these resources had been cumbersome and consuming. However, the application of new bioinformatics data-mining systems to herbal texts holds great promise for identifying novel pharmacotherapeutic leads for bioactive compounds.

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