PhD Sekou Bah 2006

The thesis is based on ethnopharmacological and physicochemical investigations of some Malian medicinal plants. The ethnopharmacological part is divided in two. One based on the identification of what plants 40 healers from the Niono district used for the treatment of schistosomiasis, the other on screening of the antispasmodial, GABAA-benzodiazepine receptor binding and anti-acetyl cholinesterase activities of extracts of the most frequently cited plant species used against schistosomiasis. The other part of the thesis focus on the isolation and purification of proteases and cystatins from the 10 most cited plants used against schistosomiasis in order to identify compounds that might inhibit the proteases. Two of the plants appeared to contain compounds with the inhibitory activity looked for and those were partially characterized.