 Since ancient times, mother nature has been a fertile source for drugs used to treat human disease. One such remedy is the spiced turmeric, which has been used for at least 2,500 years. In light of the long and established experience with curcumin, the natural yellow pigment compound in turmeric, as the foodstuff and natural medicine is low-cost, proven disease-preventing and treating potential and safety, curcumin is rapidly moving from the kitchen self toward the clinic. Curcumin has shown some promising effects against a wide range of diseases. So well, in fact, the curcumin appears to possess all the desirable features of a designed-from-scratch, multi-purpose drug. If it's so safe and effective, why aren't more studies being done? Part of the delay is attributable to a U.S. patent, granted in 1995 to researchers at the University of Mississippi Medical Center for Curcumin's Wound Healing Properties that prevented its development as a therapeutic. In a landmark case, the Indian Council of Scientific Industrial Research spent years arguing and finally proving that curcumin has been part of Indian traditional system of medicines for centuries, and so should be considered to be in the public domain. It's like patenting broccoli. The patent was finally overturned in 1997, a triumph for those trying to stop the misappropriation of traditional knowledge by multinational corporations. But if no one profits off it, how's anyone going to hear about it? Who's going to pay for the research? Given that public knowledge does not involve any intellectual property, drug companies are not interested in its commercialization. You can buy turmeric in any grocery store for pennies a dose, unless there's intellectual property to make money, nobody will come forward instead of leading turmeric researcher. How's his research being funded? Although curcumin itself is no longer patentable, derivatives, formulations, delivery systems, and synthetic methods can be patented, so if you take some turmeric molecule and tweak it a little bit, then you can patent it for your investors. Unless a lot of nutrients can be converted into new chemical entities for which more specific medical claims are possible, the development of these plants seems unlikely. Sure, they're extensively exploited as acting ingredients of innumerable products on ill-regulated food supplement markets, but apart from this, progress through clinical trials remains sluggish. Such waste of resources on the way of transformation from renewable materials to high-tech, high-value products is deplorable, these research scientists write. Such wasted potential since nobody profits. So maybe it'd be good if Frito-Lay did own the patent to broccoli. There's a reason we don't see Super Bowl ads on TV for vegetables.