Gaurav Kumar Sahu

The animal-based pharmacognosy has become a central science in the 21 st century, which represents a summarization of the conventional old knowledge of medicines and modern drug discovery. Using such models as rodents, zebrafish, and Caenorhabditis, the pharmacological activities of plant-derived active ingredients have been confirmed, indicating the use of active ingredients against inflammations, neuroprotective properties, antioxidant, antidiabetic characteristics, and wound-healing properties. High-end technological methodologies, such as assay of toxicity, behavioral analysis and disease-related models, have promoted both efficacy and safety analyses, whereas the current technological tools, such as LC-MS/MS, network pharmacology, and computational modeling, have increased accuracy, repeatability, and elucidation of the mechanism. Though interspecies variation, absence of standardization of extraction procedures and ethical issues remain a challenge in the field of animal-based pharmacognosy, it has been a revolutionary step in merging ethnomedicine and modern-day biomedical research. New paradigms, like high-throughput screening and omics methods, as well as alternative platforms, e.g., organ-on-chip systems are transforming the field, thereby providing more ethical, accurate, and translationally relevant practices. Combining or integrating the traditional wisdom and modern innovative approach, animal-based pharmacognosy can support sustainable drug discovery pipelines and offer immense opportunity in meeting the global health challenges.

Natural products of marine origin have become an attractive area in the search of new anti-cancer agents because of their distinct chemical novelty and the presence of strong bioactive substances. This study was intended to examine pharmacognostic potential of a few marine-derived compounds on cancer cell proliferation in animal experimental models. Marine sponges and algae were extracted crudely and screened phytochemically, and then in vivo assayed in tumor-induced mice models. The information was obtained by the measurement of tumor volume, analysis of survival rates, and histopathological tests. It was found that alkaloids isolated in marine sponges showed a significant decrease of the tumor volume (mean = 45.2 mm 3, SD = 4.8) compared to control (mean = 92.6 mm 3, SD = 6.2), whereas terpenoids isolated in algae increased survival rates and caused strong apoptosis in cancerous tissues. In general, the results indicate that bioactive compounds of marine origin have strong anti-cancer activity, which underlines their significance as new pharmacognostic sources of cancer treatment. The paper highlights the need of marine pharmacognosy in the broadening of natural product-based drug discovery and suggests additional research to achieve efficacy, safety, and mechanistic insights.