Research and Development - Ayurveda

1.6 Research and Development 

There are research councils and institutes functioning throughout the country on different aspects of Ayurveda. In 1971, the government of India established a research council, the Central Council for Research in Indian Medicine, Homoeopathy & Yoga (CCRIMH), which was subsequently developed into four independent councils in 1978. The Central Council for Research in Ayurveda and Siddha (CCRAS) is an apex body for the formation, coordination, development, and promotion of research on scientific lines in Ayurveda and the Siddha System of Medicine. The council has 89 field units under it, and they have been reorganized into 30 institutes and units including the Headquarters Office (List 2 in this chapter). The research activities in various fields can be broadly categorized as follows: 

* Clinical research, encompassing clinical studies and programs in survey and surveillance, community health, and tribal health. 

* Drug research, encompassing medico-botanical surveys, cultivation of medicinal plants, pharmacognostical studies, and phytochemical profiling of plants used in Ayurveda, plant tissue culture, pharmacological and toxicological studies, and drug standardization. It also has a breeding program for musk deer, which is the source of the well-known drug Kasturi. 

* Literary research, encompassing publication of rare and classical manuscripts of Ayurveda and Siddha, monographs on the basis of the studies undertaken by the council, scientific journals and bulletins, newsletters featuring activities of the council, and pamphlets on research findings; and preparation of video films on various research achievements. 

* Family welfare research, including studies on family welfare such as antifertility. 

Complete details of the activities and research of CCRAS can be found on its Web site: www.ccras.com. 

Besides CCRAS, research activities are carried out in other postgraduate institutes as part of an M.D. dissertation and Ph.D. thesis. Research studies on Ayurvedic drugs and therapies are carried out throughout the country in many conventional medical colleges and research institutes, giving MBBS degrees — though not from an Ayurvedic perspective but as part of conventional drug research. However, some institutes have done important research work on Ayurvedic herbs. The major institutes conducting research on medicinal plants are Seth GS Medical College (Mumbai), Central Drug Research Institute (CDRI, Lucknow), Regional Research Laboratory (Jammu), National Institute for Pharmaceutical Education and Research (NIPER, Mohali), Tropical Botanical Garden and Research Institute (TBGRI, Trivandrum), Central Institute of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants (CIMAP, Lucknow), National Botanical Research Institute (NBRI, Lucknow), pharmacology depart- ments attached to the Institute of Medical Sciences, Banaras Hindu University (Varanasi), KG Medical College (Lucknow), SPARC (Mumbai), University Department of Pharma- ceutical Sciences, Punjab University, etc. In-house research activity is undertaken by some of the large Ayurvedic drug manufacturers like Himalaya Drug Company, Dabur Research Center, Zandu Research Foundation, etc. (Lists 1 and 2 in this chapter). 

The present research approach, especially in the area of drug development and therapeutics, needs to consider single plant as well as Ayurvedic concepts and text formulas. Research protocols are often prepared without giving due consideration to the Ayurvedic conceptual base that underlies employing a drug in a particular disease or clinical condition. The tendency is to treat medicinal plants used in Ayurvedic therapeutics as a source material for drug prospecting for a single herb or chemical constituent and not for a drug formulation. Ayurveda has a very well-developed discipline of Ayurvedic pharmacy and drug formulation called Bhaisajya Kalpana, which deals in great detail with different methods of drug preparations, use of adjuvant, maintaining ideal conditions, collecting and processing drugs in a particular season at a particular stage and site, and others. There is urgent need to study the impact of changes made in drug formulation and manufacturing processes on the expression of biological activity and therapeutic efficacy. 

Existence of the “therapeutic gap” in modern medicine is well known. Though tremendous progress has been made in the treatment of many dreaded diseases, remedies are yet to be found for treating diseases like tuberculosis, cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, AIDS, etc. In these areas TSM drugs and procedures may have beneficial effects. Similarly, TSM drugs could be beneficial in the treatment of iatrogenic disorders like parkinsonism and to attenuate drug-induced toxicity when administered as adjuvant. Intensive research efforts are required to explore these possibilities. 

Soure: Lakshmi chandra Mishra, scientific Basis for Ayurvedic Therapies; 2004 by CRC Press LLC