Describe how a pharmaceutical company might use a bioassay t

Describe how a pharmaceutical company might use a bioassay to identify potential drugs in rainforest plants.

Solution

The number of potentially useful medicinal plants growing in the world\'s rainforests is estimated to be in the thousands. Certainly, mankind would benefit from the application of these plants. In future years, we might witness the discovery of cures for many serious diseases in rainforest plants. But there are serious questions about how we should go about achieving these goals. Drug companies and Herb companies, Indigenous peoples and Government agencies doing lots of research on these plants.

Six percent of the Earth\'s surface, tropical moist forests contain at least half of all species. The abundant botanical resources of tropical forests have already provided tangible medical advances; yet only 1 percent of the known plant and animal species have been thoroughly examined for their medicinal potentials. Meanwhile, 2 percent of the world\'s rainforests are irreparably damaged each year. Scientists estimate that, at the accelerating rate at which rainforests are now being destroyed, as much as 20 or 25 percent of the world\'s plant species will be extinct by the year 2000.

Bioassays are procedures or techniques that can determine the concentration or purity or biological activity of a substance such as vitamin, hormone or plant growth factor by measuring the effect on an organism, tissue, cells, enzyme or receptor. Bioassays may be qualitative or quantitative. Qualitative bioassays are used for assessing the physical effects of a substance that may not be quantified, such as seeds fail to germinate or develop abnormally deformity. Quantitative bioassays involve estimation of the dose-response curve, how the response changes with increasing dose. That dose-response relation allows estimation of the dose or concentration of a substance associated with a specific biological response, such as the LC50 (concentration killing 50% of the exposed organisms). Quantitative bioassays are typically analyzed using the methods of biostatistics.

In this way pharmaceutical company use several bioassay techniques for the development and formulation of new drugs from Rain forest plants