How to do pharmacognosical studies

1. Find some folk medicine books=> pre-investigation(e.g.東醫寶鑑[동의보감(Donguibogam)]: Principles and Practice of Eastern Medicine )

2. Extraction-> find the best way to extract compounds

*using CO2 at supercritical fluid state

*mixing solvents to adjust the extracting solution's polarity

3. Separation: TLC or other chromatography methods

4. Define chemical structure by NMR or other methods

5. Predict compounds’ pharmaceutical effects

*guess what would be their pharmaceutical effects according to their category

6. Proceed some experiments to define rather my prediction at ‘step 5’ is right or wrong.

7. Chemically modify the compounds’ chemical structure to enhance their effects and reduce their side effects.

 

This is just my style and you don't have to follow it.

There might be a better way to do researches. If you have your own style, please tell me about it.