IPB Professor: We’ve Got the Most Important SOP for Medicinal Plants in Indonesia

Medicinal plants are one of the most valuable source of human medicine both directly and indirectly. These plants produce a wide variety of chemical compounds that can benefit human life. However, medicinal plants currently do not have a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP), thus raising the possibility of changes in the efficacy of the plants that is used for the treatment of certain diseases.

Prof. Dr. Ir. Sandra Arifin Aziz, Professor of the Faculty of Agriculture and ecophysiologist (the science of plant physiological responses to the environment) of plants and medicinal plants said that SOPs will greatly influence the levels of bioactive ingredients found in medicinal plants.

“This is very useful for a herbal medicine company or natural medicine, when the levels of bioactive ingredients are different, the amount of weight of plants needed will be different,” he said.

This is what encourages researchers at the Center for Tropical Biopharmaca Studies in IPB in this case one of them Prof. Sandra to make SOPs in the planting of some of the most important medicinal plants in Indonesia that have not been widely known by the public. “We can increase the production of bioactive ingredients through increasing the biomass of plant parts harvested and the levels of bioactive ingredients by paying attention to the ecophysiology of the plants themselves,” added Prof. Sandra.

Some of the most important medicinal plants and functional vegetables in Indonesia studied by ecophysiology include guava, gods leaves, Dutch purslane / kolesom, gotu kola, cumin / wake-up, Java chili, yellow, and kepel fruit. These plants have their own peculiarities so that the ecophysiological action that should be carried out is different, and it requires standardization.

“This standardization helps us to approach production for functional food and medicinal raw materials. For example, just like functional food, the level of bioactive ingredients must be adjusted to the taste or delicacy of food that can be accepted by the human tongue. Oftenly, using bioactive ingredients in a high levels will damage their taste as food. This is different from plants as raw material for medicine, because high levels of bioactivity are needed, “saidProf. Sandra. (Jhn)