Dr. Rashmika Patel

The rise of herbal medicine around the world has made it even more important to accurately identify crude herbal remedies to make sure they are safe, effective, and of good quality. This study used a combination of macroscopic, microscopic, and DNA barcoding techniques to verify twelve commonly used crude herbal medication samples from the Ayurvedic and Unani systems. The first visual and anatomical confirmation came from macroscopic and microscopic studies, respectively. DNA barcoding with rbcL and matK primers gave exact species-level identification by aligning the sequences with NCBI-BLAST. Five of the studied samples were consistently confirmed by all methods, but Bacopa monnieri was still doubtful because its shape was unclear and it only partially amplified. Using Cohen's Kappa (κ = 0.812), a statistical test, we found that the three methods agreed strongly with each other. These results show that a multi-tiered authentication strategy is better than using only one method. This supports the idea of a standardised protocol for validating herbal drugs in research and industry contexts.

Rauwolfia serpentina is a well-known medicinal plant in traditional medicine. It is noted for containing a high concentration of alkaloids and being able to help alleviate symptoms associated with high blood pressure and neurological diseases. The goal of this study was to employ a systematic phytochemical method to separate and characterise the structure of the bioactive alkaloids present in the roots of R. serpentina. We used methanol to extract the dried root powder and then split it into smaller parts using hexane, chloroform, ethyl acetate, butanol, and water. The chloroform fraction contained the highest concentration of alkaloids (2.68%) and was subsequently separated into five distinct alkaloids using column chromatography. TLC profiling showed that these chemicals were Reserpine, Ajmaline, Yohimbine, Serpentine, and Ajmalicine, and FTIR, NMR (^1H and ^13C), and Mass Spectrometry verified this. The statistical analysis (ANOVA) revealed significant differences in alkaloid content between the solvent systems (p = 0.001), with chloroform being the most effective extractant. The results confirm that R. serpentina is rich in phytochemicals and provide a proven method for isolating natural products. This has implications for the discovery and development of further medications