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Abstract

Spices have been used since ancient times for a large number of purposes, such as medicinal, perfume, preservative and to confer aroma and flavour to food. They still play an important role in the traditional medicine as part of pharmaceutical preparations and several monographs are reported in the official pharmacopoeias. Extracts obtained from medicinal plants are generally complex mixtures of organic substances produced as plants secondary metabolites. Increased cases of opportunistic diseases emanating from side effects associated with synthetic drugs continue to necessitate incremental efforts in searching for effective biological substitutes with little or no side effects. Therefore, many studies have been performed with medicinal plants in order to overcome this problem, intending the discovery of new molecules of therapeutic interest. In this regard, the application of nanotechnology tends to make this more feasible due to the ideal small size of the particles, releasing the substance in the correct location and time. The choice of wall material and production method is therefore of paramount importance and combined with the ability to modify drug release, makes such nanosystems ideal candidates for therapeutical purposes presenting a wide range of applications. The nanotechnology combined to the natural products chemistry can bring an important contribution to the development of new delivery systems, promising candidates as new products with important perspective on health improvement. The aim of this work is to offer an overview on nanoencapsulation of natural products covering development challenges and future perspectives.

Biography

Email: deborah_falcao@yahoo.com.br