Abstract:
Natural products offer a vast and virtually unlimited source of new agents for cosmetic, agrochemical and pharmaceutical industries. The country Ethiopia is endowed with rich flora and fauna due to its physical and climatic diversity. The diversity of total number of vascular plants in the country is estimated to be about 6500 species, o f which an estimated 10% of the species are endemic and more than 14% are aromatic and medicinal plants, which can be exploited for different agro-industrial development purposes. Plants have always been a rich source of lead compounds (e.g. morphine,
cocaine, digitalis, quinine, tubocurarine, nicotine, and muscarine). Many of these lead compounds are useful drugs in themselves (e.g. morphine and quinine), and others have been the basis for synthetic drugs (e.g. local anesthetics developed from cocaine). Clinically useful drugs which have been recently isolated from plants include the anticancer agent paclitaxel (Taxol) from the yew tree, and the antimalarial agent artemisinin from Artemisia annua.
