The role of plants for traditional societies is hardly replaced by modern chemical medicines. Indonesia has long known about the advantages of various plants for health care and treatment and beauty. This is known as herbal medicine.
Various natural products of plants have become commercial commodities, which are attractive to the entrepreneurs of natural materials. The domestic market for herbal products even has increased from approximately 1 trillion rupiahs in year 2000 to 2 trillion in year 2002. This figure is estimated to continue to increase up to6 trillion in year 2010.
“This will allow highest decision making in technical veterinary health based on veterinary professionalism,†said the Dean of the Faculty, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Prof. Dr. drh. Bambang Sumiarto, S.U., M.Sc., and his counterpart from IPB, Dr. I Wayan T. Wibawan, M.S., D.V.M., representing other Deans, Thursday evening (29/10). Also attending were the Head of the Indonesian Veterinarians Association (PB PDHI), Drh. Wiwiek Bagja, and a member of the Veterinarian Education Council, Prof Dr. drh. Agus Lelana, in the Auditorium of the Faculty.
“The Government needs this Deputy Minister for the betterment of agriculture, i.e animal products, and veterinary health,†said drh. Wiwiek Bagja. In her opinion, to protect the community from the threats of Avian Influenza, swine flu, rabies and other cases, a system of structure and authority should be made. This system should be supported by the central leadership down to the regional leadership. “Isn’t it time to increase veterinary capacity to resolve this case?†she was asking.
She regretted that up to now the Government has not managed the structure and authority of veterinary affairs. Despite the Law No. 18 Year 2009 on animal farms and veterinary health, concerns that arise are that the Law would not be enacted by the Government soon.
Delivering speech entitled Potential Development of Indonesian Natural Drugs for Cancer: Challenges and Hope, the wife of Drs. A. Zulkarnain Karim, M. Si, SE, Apt stated that the development of current anticancer drugs is besides being anti-proliferative against cancer cells, it is also against normal cells. Therefore, the anticancer drug has narrow therapeutic index and low selectivity. In addition, it is a fact that resistance to various anticancer drugs has emerged.
She said that the anti-cancer drugs cause the death of cancer cells through several work mechanisms. Some of them are stimulating apoptosis because the apoptotic program can be manipulated to stimulate the death, so genes and proteins play role in it and can be a target of anticancer development. AThey are also capable to regulate the cell cycle and control checkpoint. "Drugs in this class disrupt the cell cycle by affecting the RNA, DNA and other proteins that appear in the cell cycle so that they can inhibit proliferation and trigger apoptosis in sensitive tumor cells," the mother of three children explained.