Discovery leads to patenting and international demand

Abstract

The recent UP discovery of a novel compound holds so much promise that some of the world’s leading scientists and pharmaceutical companies want to get involved in its future development. Dr Candice van Wyk and Dr Francien Botha, of the School of Dentistry and the Phytomedicine Programme of the Department of Paraclinical Sciences respectively, managed to isolate a compound from the plant extract of a common tree in South Africa that is proving to have miraculous anti-fungal properties.