Background

Introduction

Natural products represent a vast reservoir of structurally diverse bioactive compounds with significant potential in pharmaceuticals, agrochemicals, food supplements, additives, and herbal medicines, and are widely used in cosmetics. Beyond their established applications, they continue to serve as invaluable leads for drug discovery, templates for synthetic modification, and sustainable resources for biotechnological innovation.

Malaysia is endowed with rich biodiversity, to date, approximately 1,200 medicinal plant species have been identified in Malaysia out of an estimated 13,800 total plant species recorded in the region, with some sources reporting between 1,150 and 1,300 medicinal species^a. However, only less than 10% of this vast natural resource has been tested for biological activities.

Therefore, CENAR (Centre for Natural Products Research and Drug Discovery) was established as a platform to foster multidisciplinary collaborations within Universiti Malaya, and to stimulate interactions with other institutions of higher learning and the industry.

^a Tan, T. Y. C., Lee, J. C., Yusof, N. A. M., Teh, B. P., & Mohamed, A. F. S. (2020).
Malaysian herbal monograph development and challenges.
Journal of Herbal Medicine, 23, 100380.