In recent years the importance of herbal medicines for managing various human ailments has been recognized. There is an emergence of studies on traditional medicine. It is known that the traditional medicines could cure many diseases where modern allopathic medicine could do nothing. I am focusing on developing a phytomedicines to combat with liver disorders, caused by toxins and pathogens like viruses. This is done by screening the various extracts of the selected medicinal plants used by the ethnic people, on various experimental models. The most active extract will be further analyzed for its anti HBV activity in vitro and in vivo. The major after effect of chronic HBV infection is hepatocellular carcinoma. So the efficacy of extract in anti-carcinogenesis will also be done. I had chosen Phyllanthus rheedii, a plant used by the tribes for curing liver disorders. A screening system for rapid identification of anti HBV drugs by fluorescent tagging of viral proteins is also under way.

Liver disease is a serious health problem since it is the organ which regulates many important metabolic functions. Damage to liver may occur due to various reasons like hepatitis, hepatocellular carcinoma or mushroom toxicity. Cheilanthes farinosa is a medicinal fern, the juice of which is used by Gaddis tribes of India, to cure jaundice. Also it is experimentally proved that the water as well as ethyl alcohol extracts of Cheilanthes farinosa could protect liver from paracetamol overdose and carbon tetrachloride induced liver damage. The hepatocellular carcinoma activity of this plant has also been established. Thus if we can prove that the same plant have antiangiogenic and antiviral properties it could be used as an effective hepatoprotective phytomedicine.

Liver is one of the most important organ concerned with the biochemical activities in the human body. Therefore, damage to the liver inflicted by toxins or by infectious agents results in grave consequences. Liver fibrosis, hepatocellular carcinoma and viral hepatitis B are the major healthcare burden associated with liver. All these disorders ultimately lead to the total failure of liver to slow death of the patients. Lack of an effective therapy, late detection and side-effects of drugs has increased the mortality rate of patients with liver diseases. These all signify the importance of plants based drugs in the treatment of liver diseases since they are devoid of significant toxicity and side effects. Numerous plant species and poly-herbal formulation have been used worldwide for the prevention and treatment of various liver diseases such as jaundice, hepatitis B/C, hepatic fibrosis ,hepatic cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC),. Keeping the tag that “nature has cure for all the diseases”, my aim is to investigate the pharmacological and phytochemical properties of Phyllanthus maderaspatensis, a traditional medicinal plant for its ability to prevent and/or cure hepatic fibrosis, hepatocellular carcinoma and viral hepatitis B.

Hepatocellular carcinoma is a global disease and its impact is significant. It is the third most common cause of cancer death with prevalent areas in Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. Because of metastasis, cirrhosis and other pathological changes in the liver parenchyma, surgical resection is frequently limited. Therefore the development of Chemopreventive/chemotherapeutic agent for HCC is important for reducing the mortality caused by this disease. A successful anticancer drug should kill or incapacitate cancer cells without causing excessive damage to normal cells. A common means of drug discovery is the ethnomedical data approach in which selection of plant is based on information related to its use as folk medicine. Cuscuta reflexa .Roxb is a leafless yellow coloured thread like complete stem parasite found on many herbs and small shrubs in hills and plains of tropical India. The plant is used in Ayurvedic medicine to treat difficulty in urinating, jaundice, muscle pain and coughs.Our work focuses on screening the different extracts of Cuscuta reflexa for their anti-HCC activity.The synergistic effect of the active fractions with chemotherapeutic drugs will be carried out.

Hepatitis B Virus is non-cytopathic in hepatocytes. But its active replication and Virion production during the progress of infection leads to hepatic inflammation and liver damage is thought to be immune mediated. So developing a mechanism to suppress the Virion production and its related gene expression have prominent role in antiviral research. Most of the currently available anti HBV drugs cause the development of drug resistance and viral recurrence after long term treatment. The role of HBV X protein on the regulation of viral replication, viral recurrence and hepatic complication is well known. Reports documented that the HBX have role in regulating the host and viral gene expression through epigenetic modification. We are trying to find out the major epigenetic modification of HBV promoter after antiviral drug treatment and role of HBV X protein on this regulation. The aim of our work is to reveal the molecular mechanism behind the HBX protein mediated viral replication, gene expression and to evaluate the variations in response after chemotherapeutics and antiviral drug treatment.