Chemistry and Bioactivity of Boswellic Acids and Other Terpenoids of the Genus Boswellia

Table of Contents

1. Introduction 2. Boswellia Species: taxonomy and traditional uses 3. Chemistry of Boswellic Acids 4. Synthetic Derivatives of Boswellic Acids 5. Miscellaneous Natural Products Isolated from Boswellia 6. Biological Activities of Boswellic Acids 7. Biological Activities of Boswellia Extracts 8. Biological Activities of Cembrene Diterpenoids 9. Conclusion 10. References

Authors

Ahmed Al-Harrasi Professor of Organic Chemistry and Chair of Oman's Medicinal Plants and Marine Natural Products, University of Nizwa, Oman. Prof. Ahmed Al-Harrasi received his BSc in Chemistry from Sultan Qaboos University in Oman in 1997. Then he moved to the Free University of Berlin from which he obtained his MSc in Chemistry in 2002 and then his PhD in Organic Chemistry in 2005 as a DAAD-fellow under the supervision of Prof. Hans-Ulrich Reissig. His PhD work was on New Transformations of Enantiopure 1,2-oxazines. He then received the Fulbright award in 2008 for postdoctoral research in chemistry, for which he joined Prof. Tadhg Begely at Cornell University to work on the synthesis of isotopically-labeled thiamin pyrophosphate. After a postdoctoral research stay at Cornell University in 2009, he started his independent research at the University of Nizwa in Oman, where he founded the chair of Oman's Medicinal Plants and Marine Natural Products, merging chemistry and biological research. Dr. Al-Harrasi is currently a professor of organic chemistry and the Vice Chancellor for Graduate Studies, Research and External Relations at the University of Nizwa. He was a chair and invited speaker in many international conferences, and is a reviewer for more than 15 international chemistry and biotechnology journals. He has authored and co-authored over 290 scientific papers and six book chapters, and taught many chemistry courses both at MSc and BSc levels. Hidayat Hussain Senior Humboldt Fellow, Leibniz Institute of Plant Biochemistry, Halle, Germany. René Csuk Professor of Organic and Bio-organic Chemistry, Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg, Germany. Husain Yar Khan Assistant Professor, UoN Chair of Oman's Medicinal Plants and Marine Natural Products, University of Nizwa, Oman.