Pharmacognosy is the very old and still having development potential among the various branches of Pharmacy. The subject is mainly concerned with the study of drugs obtained from the natural sources like Plant, Animals, Minerals, Marine and Microorganisms. The Dept of Pharmacognosy is well established with the modern equipments and Dedicated faculties. The Pharmacognosy Dept of Alshifa college of Pharmacy is mainly concerned with the extraction, isolation and bioscreening of various natural products apart from the academic syllabus.The Dept is continuously aimed at the studying of various ethnomedical practices among the tribal communities in and around Malappuram and Palakkad Districts. The dept also aimed in the standardisaation of various formulations used in the different indigenous systems of treatment like Ayurveda, Siddha and Unani, for which the standardization of finished products are very less. The Medicinal garden attached to the dept is unique among the various Pharmacy colleges of Kerala. It has a collection of over 250 varities of medicinal plants, most of which are either rare or extinct. The drug museum in the Dept is having sufficient number of crude drugs. The herbarium of the dept is having a collection of over 300 specimens. The Dept is also aimed in the production of medicinal plants by tissue culture techniques.

It has the following advanced instruments and equipments for various pharmacognostical and Phytochemical Studies.

Karl Zeiss Optical Microscope with Axiocam ES Camera
Rotary Evaporator
Rotary Shaker
Ultra centrifuge
UV Cabinet
Hot air oven
Hot Plates
Soxhlet extractors
Clavenger apparatus
Heating Mantles
Distillation unit
Muffle Furnace
Chromatographic columns of various sizes
Chromatography chambers
Compound Microscopes

Achievements of the Dept.

• Continuously maintaining above 90% results across the different subjects under thedepartment for B Pharm, D Pharm and Pharm D.
• All the Faculties are well experienced. This is one of the unique features of thedepartment
• One faculty having PhD and all the others are in the nearing of completion of PhD.
• Got a grant worth Rs 300000 from AICTE for conducting International Seminar
• Organized two international Seminars
• Well maintained Medicinal garden with over 100 varieties of medicinal plants
• A good drug museum with 90 crude drugs. It is divided into specimen museum andmuseum in the laboratory area.
• Well established laboratories
• Lectures were uploaded in You tube channel
• Over 30 publications in journals of repute
• Faculty presented papers in various seminars conducted throughout the country
• One faculty presented paper at an international seminar organized by AIMST university,Penang, Malaysia
• One Faculty got the Best teacher award from SIMS in 2018
• All faculties completed certificate courses conducted by ATAL, NPTEL, KUHS,SWAYAM, Stanford Medical etc.
• Teaching materials were provided to students in the printed format with possiblequestions and the way to answer.

Future Plans

• Commencement of Post Graduate course in Pharmacognosy and Phytochemistry, which will helps in the strengthening of Research activities in the dept.
• Commercial production of various plant extract.
• Development of Bio polymers from the marine sources. (In Progress)
• Development of biodegradable polymers from natural source.
• Commercial production of volatile oil from Lemon grass.
• Commercialisation of various pharmacognostical and Physicochemical studies for academic institutions/ Industries.
• Commercialised isolation of Phytoconstituents
• Development of standardization protocol for various ayurvedic / Siddha and Unani formulations.
• Exploration of Cholanaikkar community of the Nilambur forest towards their ethnomedical practices. (In Progress)
• Biotransformation studies of different glycosides.