Connecting Indian Wisdom and Western Science (PDF)

Luisella Verotta, master degree in chemistry, is a senior assistant professor of organic chemistry and adjunct professor of natural products chemistry at the University of Milan, Italy. Verotta is a member of the Faculty of Science and Technology teaching staff. Her main research studies are in the realm of bioactive natural products, aimed at obtaining lead compounds for the development of new therapeutic agents, particularly noncytotoxic chemopreventive agents and antimalarial compounds. She has pursued parallel lines of investigations, such as the synthesis of compounds of pharmaceutical relevance based on natural scaffolds, the study of their medicinal chemistry, and the mechanism of activity. Recent researches are based on the synthesis of new entities inspired by natural products to produce new functional biomaterials for biomedical and food applications or as nutraceuticals. She has been a visiting scientist in many Third World countries, introducing young researchers to the phytochemical study of medicinal plants. She is an extramural phytochemical expert for the Centre for Orientative Education (COE), an Italian NGO that fosters and supports projects in Third world countries (TWC) for the sustainable use of natural resources. She has authored and coauthored more than 110 research papers (including full papers, book chapters, patents) and more than 110 communications to congresses, including poster presentations, oral communications, and invited and plenary lectures. She holds research contracts with several companies interested in the discovery of new bioactive natural products and acts as a reviewer of several international scientific journals. She is a member of the editorial board of Fitoterapia (Elsevier). For CRC Press/Taylor & Francis Group, she coedited Herbal Principles in Cosmetics: Properties and Mechanisms of Action in 2010.

Maria Pia Macchi is an anthropologist member of the International Society of Et