**3. Biotechnological approaches**

Traditional approaches such as pruning from natural populations or production utilizing a conventional agricultural system can be time-consuming and/or infeasible, paving the way for the development of different biotechnology technologies to improve ginsenoside yield. Thus, various technologies, such as biotechnology, bioconversion, or nanobiotechnology, have been used to overcome these limits. In particular, plant tissue culture has shown to be a useful method for the continuous production of bioactive chemicals [4, 5]. Thus, *in vitro* systems from various plant species, including undifferentiated cell cultures like a callus and cell suspension, as well as differentiated organ cultures like adventitious root and hairy root, have been developed for this purpose over the last decades. For industrial uses, scaling up in bioreactors has also been investigated [4]. The current understanding of ginsenoside biosynthesis and regulation allows for the development of metabolic engineering methods that include not only plant biotechnological systems but also microbial ginsenoside biosynthesis from renewable resources as an alternative strategy for achieving the ever-increasing demand for ginsenosides in recent years [6].

## **4. Pharmacological development**

Antifatigue, antistress, antioxidation, anti-inflammatory, antiaging, anticancer, neuroprotection, and vasorelaxation are only a few of the therapeutic effects of ginseng preparations [1]. The molecular mechanisms and medical applications of ginsenosides have sparked a lot of attention in recent years, with hundreds of studies published (**Figure 1**). Ginsenosides have complex actions and control numerous metabolic pathways, therefore their efficacy is difficult and needs to be further explored. Although various functional studies have been conducted to provide evidence-based research to rationalize traditional usages of ginseng preparations, additional effort is needed to increase therapeutic values using empirical datasets. However, scientists now have a greater opportunity to understand the pharmacological potential of ginseng products and derived ginsenosides, due to the fast development of molecular tools such as high-throughput technologies and integrated multi-omics [7].

*Introductory Chapter: Current Views and Modern Perspectives of Ginseng in Medicines DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.102709*
