Summary

Traditional medicine has been pivotal for the treatment of several ailments thru the course of human development. The advantage of these remedies is that most of them have been studied for centuries and possess low cytotoxicity and side effects. Azadirachta Indica, Salvia miltiorrhiza and Curcuma longa are widely used in traditional medicine to treat an array of disorders. Previous data suggest that phytochemicals in these plants have antioxidant bioactive components which can potentially be used to prevent radical associated disorders. In order to increase the bioavailability of the phytochemicals protein delivery systems will be employed, if successful binding occur, thest delivery systems they can be employed for prophylactic purposes. We hypothesize that select antioxidants in traditional medicine can function as prophylactic neuroprotectants. Preliminary data suggest that hydrophobicity and conjugation in antioxidant systems play an important role in neuroprotection and in protein ligand binding interaction for the protein delivery systems.