In a commendable initiative, world’s first comprehensive open database on curcumin has been created by Indian scientists from Kolkata with an aim to create substitutional innovation strategy and generate public awareness. The Curcumin Resource Database (CRDB) or portal is a collaborative effort of the Indian Institute of Technology-Guwahati (IIT-G), Institute of Advanced Study on Science...

India successfully protected its traditional knowledge by stalling a leading UK-based laboratory’s move to patent a medicinal composition containing turmeric, pine bark and green tea for treating hair loss. The UK-based company – Pangaea Laboratories Limited – had filed the patent application in February, 2011. The Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL) of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) could manage to prove the European Patent Office (EPO) that turmeric, pine bark and green tea have been used since time immemorial as an effective treatment for hair loss in the indigenous systems like Ayurveda and Unani.