WITH RAMNARAIN RUIA COLLEGE
The Ramnarain Ruia College (www.ruiacollege.edu) , Mumbai, has been accorded recognition as a Scientific and Industrial Research Organization by the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, Government of India. For more than a decade, Ruia has been engaged in implementing research programmes in the fields of modern and traditional medicine. Active collaboration between the TDML and Ramnarain Ruia College have taken them a long way towards the standardization of some popular herbs used in traditional Indian medicine. In fact, work in different areas of herbal drug research has been going on at our laboratory since 1990. In our endeavour to standardize herbs and herbal formulations with modern scientific tools, we have done some pioneering work on herbs used in the management of liver dysfunction, diabetes and kidney disorders. We have also initiated pharmacokinetic studies on herbs using different animal models. Our work at the TDML has already been published in leading scientific journals. We have published our findings on one of the most popular plant species used in the treatment of liver disorders: Phyllanthus. Our work has emphasized the need to take a closer look at the species and their injury specificity while prescribing plants for their use in the preparation of formulations. We have also set up , facilities for genomics and proteomics studies in herbal medicine standardization. To enable quick evaluations, we have installed a sixteen-channel DNA sequencer and sophisticated Gel documentation systems. As a highly motivated and cohesive team of scientific professionals from different fields, we have taken on the uphill task of herbal drug standardization by effectively using a multidisciplinary approach. The experience and expertise that we have gained during our years of herbal drug research are by now quite extensive; and they have enabled us to successfully execute many herbal drug research projects for reputed pharmaceutical companies.