IDEA : Steem-Powered Drug Discovery Projects + Indigenous Plant Knowledge

MISSION

The idea is to integrate Steemit and Steem with Drug discovery projects and community built medicinal/botanical farm projects.

PROBLEM

Drug discovery projects from plants and nature are becoming more and more expensive and unattractive to students and pharmaceutical scientist as a result of high cost of carrying out experiments from target identification to validation to be used as a lead molecule for drug development. This is more so in countries or communities (in Nigeria) where individual sponsorship for scientific research works like this is rare or non-existent.

Drug discovery from plants has been majorly kicked off from ethnomedicinal practices by traditional herbal practitioners one of such successful discovery in Nigeria is Niprisan (Nicosan; a drug used to manage sickle cell anaemia). These practitioners are usually more aware of indigenous medicinal plants, their preservation and medicinal value or uses. These knowledge however, is hardly passed down by these practitioners to the next generation mostly because it is their source of livelihood and as such feel threatened to divulge useful information about plant knowledge. In view of this rapid knowledge loss; discovery, documentation, experimental validation and preservation of historical/indigenous plants of medicinal importance has become an essential task.
Great feats such as the discovery of Niprisan are rare in Nigeria due to lack of indigenous medicinal plant knowledge and funds at the preliminary stages of drug discovery and as such there is reduced interest by students to delve into drug discovery projects as academic projects are self funded in Nigeria.

With little or no financial support to indigenous herbal medicine practitioners for contribution to drug discovery, some hindrances also come from reluctance to share their knowledge and as such drug discovery in Nigeria is not fully exploited despite being a country with great biodiversity. These factors mentioned have really hindered indigenous plant discovery and experiments leading up to extract use as lead molecule for drug development in Nigeria (Africa or anywhere else in the world!).

SOLUTION

Encourage and build a Steemit community responsible for sharing Indigenous Plant knowledge (via pictures and videos on Steemit) gotten from traditional medicine practitioners with a specific tag. Post will indicate scientific name, local names, plant origin, propagation methods of indigenous plants and name of traditional medicinal practitioner who shared its knowledge. The SBD generated from community post would be shared monthly to the traditional medicine practitioners (there would be proof of payment pictures and videos) with most knowledge shared
Increase the Steemit community with students/scientists interested in drug discovery research work and sponsor best project proposal and work in progress on drug discovery shared on Steemit with a specific tag.
Students to submit only one Project Proposal and proof of work in progress per individual.
All authors will undergo an identity validation to avoid plagiarism and abuse.
There would be a main prize of $1000, second prize of $500 and third price of $250 to be paid in SBD or STEEM.
The jury would be selected by the community.
Steemit Hub and Botanical farm built for indigenous medicinal plants.

MEASURING SUCCESS

The new Steemit community would create a great platform for other communities to key into similar goals and multiply these goals in other locations or parts of the world. The ability to multiply these goals in almost all universities/states in Nigeria and other parts of the world through support systems (to be put in place) would show great success as we would post our activities and success stories weekly or biweekly.By doing this a lot of existing and new Steemit users would commit to sharing the project’s impact and ongoing life.

The results of this Steem-powered idea would be awesome for drug discovery research students as it would establish a new social and financial foundation for student pharmacists, chemists and scientists alike to produce better and successful work for drug discovery progress in Nigeria and beyond.

This idea is open to idea moderations, proposals, corrections, tips and advices, Thank you!

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