Recent Patents on Biotechnology - Volume 19, Issue 1, 2025

The utilization of medicinal plants in the treatment of respiratory diseases has a rich history dating back centuries. A vast body of research literature, including review articles, research papers, case studies, patents, and books, provides substantial evidence supporting the use of medicinal plants in the treatment of diseases and injuries. This study delves into the diverse range of plant species known for their therapeutic properties, with a specific focus on their applications in respiratory health. Medicinal plants have played a crucial role as a source of ingredients for medications and the synthesis of drugs. Globally, over 35,000 plant species are employed for medicinal purposes, particularly in emerging countries where traditional medicine, predominantly plant-based pharmaceuticals, serves as a primary healthcare resource. This review highlights the significance of medicinal plants, such as aloe, ginger, turmeric, tulsi, and neem, in treating a wide array of common respiratory ailments. These plants contain bioactive compounds, including tannins, alkaloids, sugars, terpenoids, steroids, and flavonoids, which have diverse therapeutic applications. Some medicinal plants, notably Echinacea purpurea and Zingiber officinale, exhibit potential for adjuvant symptomatic therapy in respiratory conditions, such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), bronchitis, asthma, the common cold, cough, and whooping cough. The leaves of medicinal plants like Acacia torta, Ocimum sanctum, Mentha haplocalyx, Lactuca virosa, Convolvulus pluricaulis, and Acalypha indica are commonly used to address pneumonia, bronchitis, asthma, colds, and cough. This review aims to shed light on specific medicinal plants with therapeutic value, providing valuable insights for researchers in the field of herbal medicine. These plants hold the potential to serve as novel therapeutic agents in the treatment of respiratory diseases.

The marine environment is one of the major biomass producers of algae and seaweed; it is rich in functional ingredients or active metabolites with valuable nutritional health effects. Algal metabolites derived from the cultivation of both microalgae and macroalgae may positively impact human health, offering physiological, pharmaceutical and nutritional benefits. Microalgae have been widely used as novel sources of bioactive substances. Bioactive polymers extracted from algae, such as algal fucans, Galatians, alginates phenolics, carotenoids, vitamin B12, and peptides possess antioxidant, anticoagulant, antimicrobial, antiviral, anti-inflammatory, anti-allergy, anticancer, and hypocholesterolemic properties. It emphasizes that using marine-derived compounds with bioactive properties as functional food ingredients may help promote human health and prevent chronic diseases. Utilizing bioactive compounds has demonstrated notable advantages in terms of effectiveness more than conventional treatments and therapies currently in use which is also proven from different patents about algal applications in different fields. Despite the availability of numerous microalgae-derived products catering to human health and nutrition in the market, there remains a lack of social acceptance and awareness regarding the health benefits of microalgae. Hence, this review aims to offer a comprehensive account of the current knowledge on anticancers, antioxidants, commercially available edible algal products and therapeutics isolated from algae.

Traditional drug discovery methods such as wet-lab testing, validations, and synthetic techniques are time-consuming and expensive. Artificial Intelligence (AI) approaches have progressed to the point where they can have a significant impact on the drug discovery process. Using massive volumes of open data, artificial intelligence methods are revolutionizing the pharmaceutical industry. In the last few decades, many AI-based models have been developed and implemented in many areas of the drug development process. These models have been used as a supplement to conventional research to uncover superior pharmaceuticals expeditiously. AI's involvement in the pharmaceutical industry was used mostly for reverse engineering of existing patents and the invention of new synthesis pathways. Drug research and development to repurposing and productivity benefits in the pharmaceutical business through clinical trials. AI is studied in this article for its numerous potential uses. We have discussed how AI can be put to use in the pharmaceutical sector, specifically for predicting a drug's toxicity, bioactivity, and physicochemical characteristics, among other things. In this review article, we have discussed its application to a variety of problems, including de novo drug discovery, target structure prediction, interaction prediction, and binding affinity prediction. AI for predicting drug interactions and nanomedicines were also considered.