**2. Vision and mission of FAB-Lab**

The Liver Research Laboratory (FAB-Lab) was established in 1990 in the Department of Pharmacognosy, Faculty of Pharmacy, Mansoura University, Egypt. FAB-Lab adopts various research projects aimed at innovation in health, environmental, and pharmaceutical industry issues.

**Vision**: Conducting distinguished research in the field of drug discoveries from natural sources with tangible returns at the regional and international levels.

**Message**: FAB-Lab seeks to promote integration between different departments in the field of drug discovery to contribute in solving health problems.

The research strategy depends on shifting from conventional approaches in medicine (treating symptoms) to a more holistic approach that is patient/environment-centered.

The drug discovery team, Badria and coworkers, at Pharmacognosy department, Mansoura University presented many significant contributions in using simple, economic, and abundantly available phenolic compounds to produce a series of useful analogues that exhibited very promising applications industrial and therapeutic applications (as shown in **Figure 1**).

One of FAB-Lab's early papers entitled "Is Man Helpless Against Cancer: An Environmental Approach in "Cancer Letters" in 1994 [1] is a landmark in exploiting the role of foods, medicinal plants, and herbs rich in phenolic compounds in prophylaxis and treatment of cancer.

FAB-Lab stressed the role of green and conventional chemistry using natural, in-house resources and facilities as friendly environmental substances to construct new therapeutic agents for the well-being of society; e.g., for treatment of epidemics of neglected tropical diseases such as Schistosomiasis [2]. The extensive studies on environment-friendly chemistry revealed valuable information about the root cause of many complex health disorders. Therefore, a final highlight is considered a serious attempt toward solving local, regional, and global problem via designing and producing a drug from agricultural wastes, foods, and plants for treatment of cancer and hepatic disorders [3–9], degenerative diseases [10, 11], hair and skin [12], dentistry [13], ophthalmology [14], breast cancer [15–20], osteoarthritis [21], and bronchial asthma [22, 23].

Liver research laboratory (FAB-Lab, Faculty of Pharmacy, Mansoura University, Mansoura, Egypt) presented a multidisciplinary approach for nonconventional industrial, pharmaceutical, and therapeutic applications.

These efforts demonstrate that, despite the many limitations of NPs, reasonable modifications may lead to the discovery of a novel drug. From this standpoint, the Liver Research Laboratory (FAB Lab) was a pioneer in designing a system to meet the goal of the scientific research in order to serve society, the environment, public health, and to furnish a sustainable well-developed globe. Examples of our concerted efforts, for over 30 years, are in the area of natural products and utilization of environmental

*Research on Natural Phenolic Compounds in FAB-Lab: Nonconventional Industrial… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.101446*

#### **Figure 1.**

*FAB-lab multidisciplinary team. (A) Research was initiated in the Faculty of Pharmacy and then extended to worldwide cooperation. FAB-lab contributions in improving health care, education, and research collaboration were presented in research and books publications (B), and patents (C).*

waste containing phenolic compounds as potential therapeutic agents in many health disorders; e.g., cancer, cataract, degenerative diseases, hyperpigmentation, hyperglycemia, skin disorders, and others, besides contribution in synthesis of nano-silver, green chemistry, click chemistry, and chelating agents for iron overload.

Structures and biological diversity of phenolic compounds isolated in Fab-Lab included but not limited to simple phenolics, e.g., gallic acid, methyl gallate, vaniline, and eugenol and polyphenolic compounds; e.g., flavonoids, curcuminoids, anthraquinones, gingerols, epigallicatectchins.

Therefore, this chapter will present some FAB-Lab's success and accomplishments in industrial and environment-friendly chemistry (e.g., green and click chemistry), modulation of enzymes in different biological systems (e.g., tyrosinase, alphaamylase, hyaluroniase, aldose reductase, topoisomerase, and leukotriene hydrolase "LTH4ase," and therapeutic applications (e.g., hepatology, ophthalmology, nephrology, dermatology, dentistry, virology, and metabolic disorders).

### **3. Industrial and environment-friendly chemistry**
