Therapeutic Plant extract pHD beginner...needs advice

[seamoro]

I am thinking of doing a pHD on the potential therapeutic effects of a plant....what i would like to do is obviously extract the compound, isolate it, identify it and see the potential active site it interacts with in the body I kinda think that it would be impossible to do this in all one a pHD...am i right? I mean just to to identifty the potential compound which could run into the hundreds....would take a long time right?
My background is...4 year Biochemistry degree and about 5 years experience in HPLC and GC separations. i guess this would help a bit.
Why i am asking you guys and why i have asked similar questions on this site before...cause i guess this is the crossroads now in my life..im 28 and this choice in pHD will determine what i do for the rest of my life...maybe.
The may reason why i want to do a pHD is to work with proteins and ther separations which i havent been really doing(mostly semi synthetic compounds such as antibiotics). so what u guys suggest i concentrate on?...on the topics i mention above?......also to determine the intercation site by biomakers etc would obviously require a high tech university?..
HOpe u guys answer this...cause i need your help...thanks for your answers in advance

[zokitano]

Dear Seamoro,

It is good to hear that you are determined to carry on with your education and to work in the endless field of the plant science.
I'm at your age exactly so maybe my opinions aren't still "experienced" compared to some experts here on the forum. But I would like to write here my 5 cents...

When I started with my MSc thesis couple years ago, I have the same "idea" as you in my mind. I come from a country that has a wide variety of plant species that are used in traditional medicine but are unknown or partially known to the exact science and medicine when it comes to their composition or in vivo activity. I'm currently working on different "idea" which is faaaaaaar away from my initial "idea", but that's the way life goes. My colleague from the university has the opportunity to do his PhD work that is very similar to your future science intentions, so speaking and observing the job that is required to be done I can comment a little bit in order to help you in some way.

Anyway, your chromatographic experience will help you to separate the compounds from the plant extracts and to obtain them in preparative manner to be able to submit them to MS, IR, NMR, DSC... analysis as pure compounds (if you want to elucidate their chemistry). But before chromatography you should do a lot of sample preparation, a lot of different extracts (ethanolic, hexane etc) depends on what type of compounds are you looking for in the extracts (volatile, semivolatile, nonvolatile, polar, semipolar, nonpolar etc).
Also when you'll obtain your extracts or pure compounds (for which a lot of prep chrom. work will be needed) you should be prepared and trained to apply the bioactivity tests on cell culture or on alive animal models (I don't know what you're intentions are, so I am more general in my elaboration). Get familiar with those tests before you start to plan your experimental work, because the work with live animals can be a nightmare for inexperienced scientist.

For the 4 year (i suppose) PhD period you should be able to do a lot of your PhD work, but only and if only you're focused from the beginning of your PhD on one chemical group of (potentially) active plant chemicals (with that said, you'll need to do a thorough library/article research before you determine your target compounds)

Get informed about the traditional usage of the plants you're going to include in your PhD work. And if you're not familiar with the culture and the tradition of the local people (I suppose you are planning to get your PhD in Sout East Asia) talk to the PhD students who already do the same or similar research in the area where you're planning to settle for your PhD studies.

Be aware that choosing the plant material as main research sample will cause you a lot of headaches but the beauty of the PhD work is to learn a lot and enjoy the "ride", but also get the problems fixed as soon as possible

I wish you a lot of success in your future research plans and work.

Best regards,

Zoran

[HW Mueller]

Sounds to me like you would like to work in a Nuclear Medicine group which does quite a bit basic research, or any group which works with positron emission tomography (PET), NMR tomography, and in vitro NMR spectrometry. If I were not too old I would get into aptamer research, using the above apparati.

[Uwe Neue]

There is still a wide range of paths that can fit into your description. Let us take one of them: First, you have to have a plant with a proven activity. From my standpoint, the most important thing in such a project is then to have a well functioning technique that tells you about the biological activity that you are after. If you have a functioning test, the next thing is to have access to separation equipment, such as HPLC and preparative LC. If you have all three, and nobody has researched this particular plant before, you have a good chance of finding something, and potentially something with a new activity.

Warning: most plants with true biological activity have already been well researched by pharmaceutical companies, and you may have trouble finding anything new. Also, the active compound in a plant with a known therapeutic effect is not likely a protein, if the activity of the plant is through ingestion.

[zokitano]

And also in addition to previous posters:

It is more likely that the observed bioactivity of some medicinal plant is due to the synergistic action of several similar or/and different compounds rather than one compound itself. Which complicates the life a little bit more...

Just have a faith and go for it


Regards

[Don_Hilton]

One other thing to note. What you do for you PhD only limits what you will do in the future to some extent. Most people I know are working with something related to the PhD work - and sometimes that relationship is a bit distant. In your PhD program you will have the opportunity to gather two sets of tools. The first is the set of tools that lets you solve the problems related to your project. The second set of tools is the set of skills to go out and gather tools for solving projects - and building tools when the available ones run out. The first set of tools may get you the degree. The second set of tools will allow you to diversify - and perhaps even invent a field that never existed until you decided to explore it.

So, go do something that interests you and research it well.