Development of Extract Library from Indonesian Biodiversity: A Drug Discovery Perspective
Abstract
Conventional drug discovery is a slow, lengthy and very expensive process. Drug
discovery through screening process using extracts from natural products can be an alternative
to solve this problem. Indonesian biodiversity is invaluable source to search for drugs for
different types of diseases. One of the main problems of this drug discovery process is that up to
now, Indonesia still does not have adequate number of extracts (extracts library) from both
marine and terrestrial sources to work with for selection or screening process. Drug screening
can be done using both manual and high-throughput screening techniques. The objective of this
proposed research is to develop extracts library from Indonesian biodiversity, so that there will
be adequate numbers of extracts for screening purposes using both manual and high-throughput
screening (HTS) methods.The expected results of the screening processes (hits) can be used
further for drug discovery purposes. The activities performed in this work will give significant
impact not only for pharmaceutical industries, but also social and economic impact to society.