Major objective for the research collaboration:

• Identify medicinal plants used by traditional healers in Mali for the treatment of major illnesses in the country
• Produce effective traditional medicines for the treatment of important diseases in Mali in order to obtain a safer and more effective way for a better and more reliable healthcare system for the population of Mali
• Develop methods for quality control of Improved Traditional Medicines
• Produce medicines to a cost that the population can afford
• Knowledge transfer between researchers and the local healers concerning medicinal plants

Collaboration partners and results of the collaboration:

The partners of this collaboration are section of Pharmacognosy, School of Pharmacy, University of Oslo, Norway and  Institute National Reserche de Science de Publique, Departement du Medicine Traditionelle (Department of Traditional Medicine (DMT)), in Bamako, Mali. Both institutions are working on medicinal plants of actively used in Mali and focus on bioactive compounds both of high molecular weight (mainly polysaccharides) and low molecular ones (polyphenols, saponins, heavy metals and other compounds of interest) present in the plants under study.

Up to February 2009 this successful project has given the following results:

• 6 PhD thesis
• 4 from  Mali
• 2 from Norway and 2 under education
• 36 publications in International peer reviewed journals
• 22 Master projects from School of Pharmacy, Oslo, Norway
• 65 Master projects from School of Pharmacy and DMT, Bamako, Mali
• Training of 1 technician in instrumentation maintenance and glass blowing
• One master candidate in plant systematics
• Investment of different kinds of instrumentation for the laboratory at DMT on order to be able to continue the studies the PhD candidates educated in Norway are trained to perform
• Drissa Diallo, the first PhD candidate has become a professor and the Vice Dean at The Faculty of Medicine, Pharmacy and Odontology, University of Bamako, Mali. 
• Ababacar Maïga is a lecturer in toxicology at The Faculty of Medicine, Pharmacy and Odontology, University of Bamako, and also a researcher at DMT as well as deputy head of Malian Drug Control                   
• Sekou Bah and Adiaratou Togola are both researchers as DMT and lecturers at The Faculty of Medicine, Pharmacy and Odontology, University of Bamako, in Pharmacology and Pharmacognosy respectively.