A “BioEcoAgro” integrated research approach for new/renew valorizations of ancient traditional medicines and today/tomorrow’s uses of plant secondary metabolites

peer reviewedThe immense diversity of wild plants has been naturally selected over thousands/millions of generations within their changing biotic and abiotic environments. The pressure of natural selection led to necessary adaptations which conditioned the survival of true phylogenic groups. Beyond basic physiological needs, branches of the plant kingdom subjected to spontaneous mutations have developed an incredible capacity to synthesize biomolecules with useful properties to defend these non-mobile individual organisms. Called “secondary metabolites”, and more recently “specialized metabolites”, some of these molecules are biologically associated with the living environment. Thus, many biological activities became interesting for the plants and, later, for humankind when modern medicine did not yet exist