At the age of 36, Prof. Agung Endro Nugroho,S.Si., M.Si., Apt., has earned professorship from UGM. The man born in Surakarta, 15 January 1976, received his decree on 1 October 2012, making him the youngest professor of UGM.
Agung who is a lecturer of Faculty of Pharmacy was officially inaugurated as UGM professor on Thursday (28/2) in the UGM Senate Hall. He delivered a speech entitled the Role of Molecular Pharmacology in the Development of Pharmaceutical Research.
In his speech Agung said that pharmacology has experienced rapid progress that has reached the molecular level. Pharmacology not only studies the effect of drugs but also the mechanism and target of drug molecular action in the body. Such action involves complex actions at molecular level.
Molecular pharmacology research and biomedicine are currently leading to identifications of regulator proteins and complex signaling system that has the role in normal physiology process or pathological condition in some systems in the body. Molecular pharmacology research can explain the order of human genome and become the basis of implementation of molecular pharmacology in health treatment.
Agung said that in Indonesia, molecular pharmacology has been used as strategy in herbal drugs finding, which is through tracking of active fractions of herbs, one of those is awar-awar. Ethanolic extract of the herb showed cytotoxic effect that is potent on T47D breast cancerous cells.
Agung regretted that Indonesia has not been able to produce herbal drugs independently while Indonesia has the largest biodiversity in the world. “Ironically, up to 90% of drugs have to be imported,” said the man who studied Pharmacology and Clinical Pharmaceutical.
In his opinion it is very complex to produce herbal drugs. “This needs big budget, but if we have to import them in the long run, that will create dependency as well as even bigger budget,” said the man who is now Vice Dean for Research and Community Service.
The fact encouraged him to keep doing research. He explained that Faculty of Pharmacy was developing some herbal drugs, including anti-hypertension, diabete and cancer drugs, that will be produced soon for the public.
Agung reinstated that herbal drug development is very important to do as herbal drugs have minimum side-effects, and the use of drug can be more controlled and safer.