Vision

The vision of the programme is to enable the use of medicinal plants growing in South Africa for the benefit of its people and animals.  The programme investigates problems in the wide area of infections, especially microbial and parasitic infections in the process of training postgraduate students.  The programme applies academically sound methods and tries to understand the background to the problems, rather than only developing a quick fix. Therefore we are not satisfied only with isolating and testing bioactive compounds, but are also interested in following up on aspects such as toxicology, pharmacology, testing activity in animals, mechanism of activity, industrial application and enabling rural use. We keep regulatory requirements in mind to ensure that products developed may be registered for use in animals and humans. 

In line with the aim of the University of Pretoria, we aim to be internationally competitive and locally relevant.  Our clients are our students, our scientific collaborators, industry involved in phytomedicine or plant secondary compounds and users or potential users of phytomedicines.