Issues in Contemporary Agriculture:
Pharmaceuticals

In the News

Alberta-Based Project Seeks Plants' "Chemist" Genes

(Country Guide, May 21, 2009)  Alberta researchers plan to head up a new project to take inventory of the genetic sequences by which plants produce valuable compounds.

Doug Horner, the province's minister of advanced education and technology, announced the project, called PhytoMetaSyn, on Wednesday at BIO International, a major biotechnology conference in Atlanta.   Read more

Alberta Clover Eyed for Osteoporosis Treatment

(Country Guide, February 12, 2009)  Alberta forage growers could pick up a "premium market" for red clover if an Edmonton natural health firm's osteoporosis treatment makes it to the commercial stage. SinoVeda Canada, owned by former University of Alberta pharmaceutical sciences professor, Dr. Yun K. Tam, and his wife Dr. Nuzhat Tam-Zaman, has picked up a $2.9 million investment from Avac Ltd. for "pre-commercial development" of the three-year-old "phytomedicinal" company.  Read more

Molecular Farming Target Magic Bullets

(Owen Roberts, Guelph Mercury, December 8, 2008)  New companies forming in the current economic environment are rare, but here's one: Plantform. It's a biotechnology enterprise, emerging after years of research that have established Guelph and Plantform's co-founder, University of Guelph environmental biologist professor Chris Hall and his research group, as leaders in molecular farming.  Read more

Flaxseed Food Deliveries Underway in Winnipeg

(Agri-Food Research & Development Initiative News Release, October 28, 2008)  Food deliveries have begun in a $1.5 million clinical trial studying the influence of a flaxseed-enriched diet on patients with cardiovascular disease.

The Agri-Food Research and Development Initiative (ARDI) and the Canadian Centre for Agri-food Research in Health and Medicine (CCARM) this week unveiled the brightly-coloured van that for the next two years will deliver frozen food products to the homes of study participants.  Read more

Green, leafy pharmaceuticals: plants with the power to treat diseases

(Clemson University Press Release, in AgNet, October 20, 2008)   Collaborating through the South Carolina Center for Botanical Medicine based in Charleston, plant researchers at Clemson University are working with medical researchers at the Medical University of South Carolina to identify the active ingredients in plants and to understand the impact biocompounds have on illnesses ranging from cancer to arthritis.

As plant-base therapeutics find widespread acceptance, it will be necessary to ensure dependable dosage levels as botanical products are integrated into the practice of medicine, says David Gangemi, director of Clemson's Institute for Nutraceutical Research.  Read more

Manitoba's Functional Food Industry Leaders Team up with Australian Scientists

(FFNet, March 7, 2008)  Members of Manitoba's vibrant functional food and nutraceutical cluster have initiated a collaborative research and product development effort targeting bioactive proteins in dairy and their impact on chronic disease prevention and management.

Lead by The Richardson Centre for Functional Foods and Nutraceuticals (RCFFN), the global initiative involves scientists at University of South Australia's Nutritional Physiology Research Centre, the Centre for Agri-Health in Research & Medicine (CCARM) at St. Boniface Hospital, and the University of Manitoba Departments of Food Science and Human Nutritional Sciences, which are affiliated with the RCFFN.  Read more