Polyphenols, Spices and Vegetarian Diet for Immunity and Anti-Inflammatory Drug Design

Much lower COVID-19 incidence and mortality in India compared to the Europe and northern America may relate to higher immunity possibly due to the low consumption of fast/packed food, liquour, tobacco, meat, HFSS- high fat, salt, sugar, besides higher exposure and a key blood protein. Indian spice intake is also double the world average and healthy cooking oil use such as Mustard, and may also explain it. Inflammation is the foundation for many ailments and challenges the immunity and vital in non-communicable ailments are at the centre stage in an aeing world. Polypehnols are crucial anti-inflammatory chemicals from spices that can for wellbeing and reduce adverse drug rections. We show this using Arthritis- a chronic auto-immune disorder, with the hlep of pharmacokinetic studies. Molecular Docking study was performed on the key bioactive compounds of important spices regarding COX2 active site (PDB ID 5IKR). Piperine in Black Pepper had most stability (Black Pepper, −9.99 Kcal/mol) followed by ‘Apigenin’ (Coriander, −9.63), and ‘Curcumin’ (Turmeric, −8.66) like quercetin in literature, and higher than the methotrexate (−8.6), the standard drug. Hence, their synergistic combination in fat medium such as clarified butter can lead the future drug design

Intellectual property rights and Agricultural Technology: linking the micro- and the macro-scales

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On the patterns of tree diversity in the Western Ghats of India

We have explored in the Western Ghats the patterns of tree diversity in relation to vegetation types which have been primarily defined on the basis of structure and phenology, A total of 20,785 individuals, belonging to 398 species, were enumerated along 108 belt transects covering a total area of 75 ha, from localities that spanned the entire length of the hill chain of the Western Ghats (8°N to 21°N latitude and 73°E to 75°E longitude) in peninsular India. These transects were assigned to 7 vegetation types and were shown to be distinctive in species composition. These types include closed canopy evergreen, semi-closed canopy evergreen, stunted evergreen, semievergreen, moist deciduous, dry deciduous forests, and scrub/savanna vegetation. Dry deciduous forests with low levels of density and diversity harbour a rather exclusive set of species. The most diverse tree assemblages belong to the semievergreen forest type, which harbours widespread species extensively shared with other vegetation types. The semiclosed evergreen forests resemble semievergreen forests in many ways. In contrast, the stunted evergreen forests and scrub/savanna exhibit low values of tree density and diversity; their component species have very weak tendencies to co-occur with each other. The evergreen and moist deciduous forests exhibit moderate to high density and diversity and moderate levels of distinctiveness of species composition. The evergreen forests however resemble dry deciduous forests in harbouring species with a strong tendency to co-occur and many species with restricted distributions. More moist vegetation types shelter a higher proportion of evergreen and endemic trees and a lower proportion of medicinally-useful species. These results have significant implications for devising a sampling strategy

Developing ecosystem service indicators: experiences and lessons learned from sub-global assessments and other initiatives

People depend upon ecosystems to supply a range of services necessary for their survival and well-being. Ecosystem service indicators are critical for knowing whether or not these essential services are being maintained and used in a sustainable manner, thus enabling policy makers to identify the policies and other interventions needed to better manage them. As a result, ecosystem service indicators are of increasing interest and importance to governmental and inter-governmental processes, including amongst others the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the Aichi Targets contained within its strategic plan for 2011-2020, as well as the emerging Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). Despite this growing demand, assessing ecosystem service status and trends and developing robust indicators is o!en hindered by a lack of information and data, resulting in few available indicators. In response, the United Nations Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC), together with a wide range of international partners and supported by the Swedish International Biodiversity Programme (SwedBio)*, undertook a project to take stock of the key lessons that have been learnt in developing and using ecosystem service indicators in a range of assessment contexts. The project examined the methodologies, metrics and data sources employed in delivering ecosystem service indicators, so as to inform future indicator development. This report presents the principal results of this project

Fighting Patent Wars on Bioresources: The Indian Response

472-478Indian government has piloted three revolutionary legislations to protect the national intellectual property rights (IPR), viz. Patents (Second) Amendment Bill, Biological Diversity Bill and Plant Variety Protection and Farmers' Rights (PVPFR) Act. While necessitated by unfavourable commitments to the World Trade Organization (WTO), these legislations attempt to benefit from the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). The pioneering provisions in these legislations include disclosure of source of material and knowledge, and grounds for opposition or revocation based on availability of indicative traditional knowledge. The biological diversity legislation would necessitate registration of public knowledge throughout the country, Prior Informed Consent (PIC) of the owners of the resources and knowledge as well as the government, for access to resources contingent to benefit sharing. It also charges government with monitoring and opposing IPR infringement of Indian resources and knowledge. Efforts of several NGOs and the government sponsored National Innovations Foundation (NIF) provide the platform to build the registration and benefit sharing system at the grassroots. Encouraging such measures internationally through the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is advisable

Intellectual property rights on biological resources: benefiting from biodiversity and people's knowledge

The Indian Patent Act is being amended, in part, because of our commitments under General Agreement on Trade and Tariff (GATT). Similar considerations have prompted us to formulate a Protected Plant Varieties Act. At the same time, a National Biological Diversity Act is also on the anvil in response to our commitments to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). The CBD has advanced beyond the conventional intellectual property rights (IPR) regime to accept the sovereign rights of nations over their biodiversity resources, and the need thereof to share benefits of commercial applications of traditional knowledge of sustainable uses of biodiversity resources with local communities. It is important for India to benefit from these provisions and create a legislative framework that would be a model for other developing countries as well. Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) are now being extended to biological resources, beyond the conventional domain of mechanical and chemical innovations. On this new biological frontier, considerable pertinent knowledge and resources already exist in the public domain, and CBD has clearly accepted the need to respect and share its benefits with these public-domain resources. These considerations must be reflected in the Amended Patent Act. It is also vital that we ensure a proper harmonization of the provisions of the new Patent Act, Protected Plant Varieties Act, and the Biological Diversity Act. In this article we discuss measures for disclosure of country of origin, relevant public knowledge or agreements in the IPR applications under these acts

On the hospitality of Western Ghats habitats for bird communities

Species assemblages have been characterized in terms of numbers of individuals or various measures of diversity such as species richness or evenness. We may characterize sets of such assemblages in terms of how widespread their constituent species are and how cohesive the assemblages are. In this paper we define measures of these properties termed ubiquity and hospitality respectively. We explore the distribution of these two parameters, as well as the more commonly used measures of diversity for a set of 132 bird assemblages censused with the help of one hour long transects of 100 m X 500 m to 600 m in 21 localities covering 9 major types of habitats from across the entire length of the hill chain of Western Ghats in peninsular India. We find that while biological parameters characterizing individual transects are positively correlated amongst each other, various measures of ubiquity and hospitality form a distinct group of parameters positively correlated with each other, and physical parameters such as latitude and rainfall form a third independent group of positively correlated parameters. Hospitality and ubiquity thus turn out to be independent parameters providing biologically useful insights. For instance, montane evergreen forests and monoculture plantations both harbour species poor communities. However those of montane evergreen forests are cohesive assemblages of restricted geographical distributions, while those of monoculture comprise species of widespread occurrence drawn from many different habitat types