Ethnobotanical approach versus random approach in the search for new bioactive compounds: support of a hypothesis.

Context: Whether natural product drug discovery programs should rely on wild plants collected "randomly" from the natural environment, or whether they should also include plants collected on the basis of use in traditional medicine remains an open question.

Objective: This study analyzes whether plants with ethnomedical uses from Vietnam and Laos have a higher hit rate in bioassay testing than plants collected from a national park in Vietnam with the goal of maximizing taxonomic diversity ("random" collection).

Materials And Methods: All plants were extracted and subjected to bioassay in the same laboratories.

An ethnobotanical survey of medicinal plants of Laos toward the discovery of bioactive compounds as potential candidates for pharmaceutical development.

Context: An ethnobotany-based approach in the selection of raw plant materials to study was implemented.

Objective: To acquire raw plant materials using ethnobotanical field interviews as starting point to discover new bioactive compounds from medicinal plants of the Lao People's Democratic Republic.

Methods: Using semi-structured field interviews with healers in the Lao PDR, plant samples were collected, extracted, and bio-assayed to detect bioactivity against cancer, HIV/AIDS, TB, malaria.