Phytoconsult agency for research into plant compounds
	Dr. T. J. C. Luijendijk

Proceedings of the congress "2000 Years of Natural Products Research", 26-30 July 1999 in Amsterdam

Phytoconsult  is an independent research agency, aiming to work on projects involving plant compounds. For this purpose, it seeks contacts with companies and organisations that are interested to put out research project(s) in this field to contract.

What can Phytoconsult  do?
What kind of services does Phytoconsult  offer? Simply said: any research on plant compounds. Having close contacts with the Division of Pharmacognosy at Leiden University (part of the Institute for Biology Leiden), and the Leiden Amsterdam Center for Drug Research, it has the facilities available to do thorough studies in both theoretical as practical aspects.

In literature studies more information may be obtained and evaluated on certain plant constituents regarding occurrence, biological activity or toxicity, and the prospects of obtaining compounds as a pure chemical.

Practical studies could embrace e.g., studies to extract and isolate a certain compound to purity and methods for accurate qualitative and/or quantitative analysis. Since plants consist of a complex mixture of highly diverse substances, isolation of a single compound is usually not that straightforward. For the same reason, analytical determinations may be hampered by the presence of interfering constituents. This kind of obstacles can be overcome by Phytoconsult 's phytochemical experience.
Routine protocols exist e.g., for the isolation and purification of hop bitter acids, the biosynthetically important iridoid secologanin, and the general indole alkaloid precursor strictosidine.

Other projects that Phytoconsult  has been working on, involved the identification of the compounds responsible for flower colours in cultured plants, isolation and structure elucidation of plant compounds with activity in certain bioassays, the structure elucidation and quantitative analysis of natural nutraceuticals that were active as anti-oxidants, testing of pharmaceutical preparations using HPLC-, NMR-, MS- or gel electrophoresis analysis, etc., etc.

Read more about research into plant compounds here.

Use of Plant Compounds
Plant compounds are widely used. For instance, despite the numerous achievements in synthetic organic chemistry during the last few decades, still about 40% of modern day pharmaceuticals are plant constituents, or compounds derived from them. It is clear that there still lies an enormous opportunity in further development of new drugs from these sources. Tropical rain forests and other, until now poorly investigated, plant sources may be holding the drugs of the near future.

Also, apart from the use as nutrients, food industries are particularly interested in plant compounds as these can be used as natural additives in food products for a specific purpose. One can think of flavours, colorants and preserving agents. If the additives can be of proven natural origin, these food products may be more appealing for consumers: foodstuffs without chemical additives are increasingly popular. Industries can substantially enlarge their market share by the development of such products.

A more recent trend is the development of nutraceuticals, food products with an additional biological activity, that is health promoting. As for pharmaceuticals, also here plant compounds may be playing an important role in the near future.

Facilities
As Phytoconsult  is closely collaborating with the division of Pharmacognosy, at Leiden University (The Netherlands), projects are guaranteed to be handled with academic scrutiny. Apart from a high degree of expertise, a rich variety in equipment is presently available that may be used in analytical determinations, purification and structure elucidation of compounds from plant (and other) sources. Furthermore, an extensive (phyto-)chemical library is available, offering all the necessary literature for a thorough search through the scientific publications in this field.

Are you interested?
Do you think Phytoconsult  could play a role in a subject that has your interest? Then please contact us at the address below. We can always discuss the possibilities and send you a free project offer.

Madagascar Periwinkle Catharanthus roseus flowers (Photo: Wim Snoeijer)

For more information, please contact:

Dr. Teus Luijendijk - Phytoconsult
c/o Div. of Pharmacognosy
Gorlaeus Laboratories
Einsteinweg 55
2333 CC Leiden

Postal address:
P. O. Box 11 113
2301 EC Leiden
The Netherlands