Question: What plant gives us the most medicines?

Isabel Webb answered on 13 Mar 2014:

There is no one specific plant that gives us the most medicines. Often compounds are extracted from plants and used to make medicines.

Once we understand the chemicals we can then use chemistry to make the compounds industrially. One example is the chemical used in asprin. The important compound was originally discovered because chewing the bark of some trees such as willow helped relieve headaches. Nowadays factories produce this chemical on a massive scale.

Many cultures in other countries have traditionally used plants as medicines by using the plant as a whole rather than extracting chemicals – there is evidence of humans doing this for over 5000 years (we always knew plants were great!). However, there is often no scientific research to back up use of these plants.

I would say that one particularly important plant is the Madagascan Periwinkle (Catharanthus roseus). This flower makes compounds used to treat cancer – which is very important, and a lot of people need it. Researchers here in Norwich are trying to understand the way that the periwinkle makes these compounds so that they can explore making new chemicals with the same properties.