In India, Ayurveda has made a major contribution to the drug discovery process with new means of identifying active compounds. Recent advancement in bioavailability enhancement of drugs by compounds of herbal origin has produced a revolutionary shift in the way of therapeutics. Thus, bibliographic investigation was carried out by analyzing classical text books and peer-reviewed papers, consulting worldwide-accepted scientific databases from last 30 years. Herbal bioenhancers have been shown to enhance bioavailability and bioefficacy of different classes of drugs, such as antibiotics, antituberculosis, antiviral, antifungal, and anticancerous drugs at low doses. They have also improved oral absorption of nutraceuticals like vitamins, minerals, amino acids, and certain herbal compounds. Their mechanism of action is mainly through absorption process, drug metabolism, and action on drug target. This paper clearly indicates that scientific researchers and pharmaceutical industries have to give emphasis on experimental studies to find out novel active principles from such a vast array of unexploited plants having a role as a bioavailability and bioefficacy enhancer. Also, the mechanisms of action by which bioenhancer compounds exert bioenhancing effects remain to be explored.

Plants are rich source of antibacterial agents because they produce wide array of bioactive molecules, most of which probably evolved as chemical defense against predation or infection. A major part of the total population in developing countries still uses traditional folk medicine obtained from plant resources With an estimation of WHO that as many as 80% of world population living in rural areas rely on herbal traditional medicines as their primary health care, the study on properties and uses of medicinal plants are getting growing interests. In recent years this interest to evaluate plants possessing antibacterial activity for various diseases is growing. Different solvent extracts (aqueous, alcohol and ethanol) of leaves, flower and seed of various plants selected based on an ethnobotanical survey from India were subjected to in vitro antibacterial activity assay against Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria employing different diffusion method. Based on local use of common diseases and Ethnobotanical knowledge, an attempt has been made to assess the antibacterial properties of selected medicinal plants viz. Argemone mexicana (Shialkanta), Aster lanceolatus (White panicle), Capparis thonningii and Capparis tomentosa (Woolly caper bush), Cardiospermum halicacabum (Balloonvine), Cassia alata (Herpetic alata), Centaurea sclerolepis, Cinnamomum zeylanicum (Cinnamon), Curcuma longa (Turmeric), Cymbopogon nervatus, Ficus religiosa (Peepal), Indigofera aspalathoides (Ajara), Marrubium vulgare (Horehound), Medicago Spp.(Medick, Burclover), Morus alba (Mulberry), Ocimum sanctum (Tulsi), Origanum marjorana (Marjoram), Oxalis corniculata (Amli), Piper nigrum (Kala mirch), Plectranthus amboinicus (Indian borage, Patharchur), Plumeria acutifolia (Kachuchi), Salvadora persica (Piludi), Salvia repens and Syzygium aromaticum (Clove) for potential antibacterial activity against some important bacterial strains, namely Bacillus subtilis, Bacillus cereus, Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus pyogenes, Pseudomonas spp, Proteus spp, Salmonella Typhi, Escherichia coli, Shigella dysentriae, Klebsiella pneumoniae. The plant extracts were more active against Gram-positive bacteria than against Gram-negative bacteria. [J Intercult Ethnopharmacol 2012; 1(1.000): 52-61

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Currently, artemisinin-based combination therapy is considered the best option in the treatment of malaria. However, toxicity of artemisinins limits their use in pregnancy. In the absence of sufficient toxicity data, the World Health Organization recommends that artemisinins are not to be used in the first trimester of pregnancy and can be used only in second and third trimesters, when other treatments are not available. We have recently observed that drugs loaded in nanolipid carriers are selectively taken up in Plasmodium-infected erythrocytes with a concomitant reduction in the dose required to cure animals. Thus, 20% of the therapeutic dose of artemether-clindamycin (ARM-CP) loaded in nanostructured lipid carriers (NLCs; mean particle size 55 ± 10 nm) resulted in complete parasite clearance and 100% survival of infected mice. Here, we investigate the teratogenicity of this formulation in rodents (dosing on alternate days from 6th day to 18th day of gestation; 12-15 animals/group). The teratogenicity of drug-free NLCs and artesunate-clindamycin (ARS-CP) solution was also evaluated. We found that the therapeutic dose of ARS-CP caused fetal resorptions (87.5% resorptions in 8 litters), suggesting its unsuitability for use in pregnancy. Artesunate-clindamycin NLCs at therapeutic doses also resulted in ∼90% fetal resorptions in 10 litters examined. However, postimplantation losses or fetal malformations were not observed at the dose of ARM-CP NLCs that was required for complete parasite clearance in preclinical trials (ie, 20% of the therapeutic dose). Our data suggest that the NLCs loaded with 20% of the therapeutic dose of ARM-CP may have potential in treating malaria during pregnancy.

Transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs) or prion diseases are group of rare and rapidly progressive fatal neurologic diseases. The agents responsible for human prion diseases are abnormal proteins or prion that can trigger chain reactions causing normal proteins in the brain to change to the abnormal protein. These abnormal proteins are resistant to enzymatic breakdown, and they accumulate in the brain, leading to damage. TSEs have long incubation periods followed by chronic neurological disease and fatal outcomes, have similar pathology limited to the CNS including convulsions, dementia, ataxia, and behavioral or personality changes, and are experimentally transmissible to some other species.