Journal of Analytical & Bioanalytical Techniques
Open Access

Abstract

Herbal drugs and their derivatives, as well as herbal medicinal products represent a challenge in the analytical field, not only due to the complexity of their composition in active substances, at different concentration levels, but also from the point of view of stability of such active ingredients. The biological effect of an herbal medicine is resulted by the complex of constituents more than by the major and isolated active ingredients, thus their technological processing must preserve as much as possible its overall composition. Therefore an appropriated analytical method must be selective and allow monitoring the overall composition of raw materials, intermediate products and the final formulations of herbal medicines. After the processing of the extractive solutions by techniques involving heat, for instance by spray drying, commonly used to produce dried extract, it is common to observe the loss of a particular biological activity and the maintenance of other biological activities. A detailed inspection on chromatographical profile of the samples, before and after the heat treatment, may reveal what substances may play a role in the biological effect studied, though sometimes it will be necessary to couple techniques to reveal the differences in the sample composition. However, to understand which substances play a role in the biological effect, a previous submission to stress tests to simulate or predict the sample behavior is useful. Monitoring its concentration level and its liability simulating stress conditions to which the samples will be submitted is very important in the development of analytical methods. The stress conditions must be well planned to closely simulate the technological processes employed in producing intermediate and finished products and also in the physiology conditions of administrations (as example the gastrointestinal pH). In addition, the lyotropic studies parameters (as example, dissolution medium, apparatus, rotation) must be established to develop a discriminative dissolution method for oral dosage forms based on phytomedicine. In this way, which are the substances that should be bioavailable and measured to construct the dissolution profile? To understand what substances are involved in the aimed biological activity it is essential to correlate it to the number and level of constituents in the original and stressed samples.

Biography

Tania Mari Bellé Bresolin has completed her Ph.D. at the age of 32 at the Federal University of Paraná (Brazil) with a sandwich in CERMAV (Centre de Recherche sur les Macromolécules Végétales), Grenoble, France. She is the Coordinator of Post-Graduation Program of Pharmaceutical Sciences, at University of Valley of Itajaí (Brazil). She has published more than 40 papers in reputed journals, 2 books and 4 chapters of books and is serving as referee member of repute journals. She has 4 patent applications, being 2 in partnership with the pharmaceutical industry, in the field of phytotherapeutics. She has experience with drug development, HPLC development and analytical validation, and biopolymers.