Academic Heritage

A great scientific and medical concern today is to find new approaches using natural resources to fight against infectious diseases, which remain a public health problem, particularly in developing countries. Cameroon has rich biodiversity and incredibly natural resources due to its hot and humid climate. Efforts have been made around the world to fight infectious diseases and several strains are resistant to available antibiotics. Therefore, our research at the Fungus and Plant Natural Products Laboratory (EPlaNaProLab) focuses on the isolation and structure elucidation of bioactive compounds from natural sources, including those from both fungal cultures and plants. Such studies have ramifications both in the realm of drug discovery and in the area of herbal drugs. We also assess the bioactivity of plant extracts in order to verify their safety and claim pharmacological properties.

We have several projects that seek to identify new drug leads. In our current project named CECANAPROF (Centre of Competence for the study of Natural Antimicrobial PROducts from Fungi), we are exploring the cultures of coprophilous and soil fungi for novel antimicrobial secondary metabolites.