Cape Town cannabis lab Eco Green Analytics has entered the traditional medicine research field by partnering with the Pretoria-based Southern Centre for Indigenous Psycho Pharma (SCIPP). It will offer its services to analyse medicines used by traditional healers and psylocibin mushrooms in a quest to unlock the therepeutic benefits of indigenous plants.
Brett Hilton-Barber, Cannabiz Africa
26 January 2025 at 08:30:00
The whole notion of what defines ‘medicine’ is being overhauled by a new wave of plant-based research aimed at discovering therapeutic benefits hitherto unknown to mainstream science. The strides taken in medical cannabis research have opened a door of exploration into the healing properties of other indigenous plants.
Leading this ‘new wave’ in Africa is the recently launched Southern Centre for Indigenous Psycho Pharma (SCIPP), based at the University of Pretoria.
SCIPP was established as an inter-disciplinary research centre to research and develop indigenous medicines and traditions. The aim to find plant medicines that could be developed as effective treatments of “the most prevalent neurological, psychological and substance abuse conditions affecting people in Southern Africa and beyond”.
It works closely with the Cannabis Organization of Pretoria (COUP) and cannabis research forms part of its brief. However SCIPP’s remit goes further.
Now SCIPP has appointed Cape Town cannabis analystics company, Eco Green’s Technical Director Gregory Ondrejkovic, as its biochemistry advisor.
In a post on Linked-In in January 2025, Eco Green said it “will serve as SCIPP’s satellite lab in the Western Cape, providing quicker and more flexible analytical services for samples sourced from traditional healers, commercial suppliers, and academic partners in the region. It said Ondrejkovic would “lend his extensive expertise to support ground-breaking research into indigenous psychedelic mushrooms”.
As part of this collaboration, Ecogreen Analytics In addition to mushrooms, Eco Green will also collaborate on the analytics of other psychotropic indigenous plants such as “Cannabis, Sceletium, Boophane disticha, Xhosa dream roots, and other entheogens and mutis.”
The partnership has already yielded results with Ondrejkovic identifying cost-effective and compliant suppliers for reference standards essential for upcoming research projects.
Eco Green says: “Together, we’ll explore innovative analytical processes, extraction methods and tools to support toxicology, in-vitro studies and future clinical trials. We’re excited to contribute to this transformative research initiative, which will involve post-graduate students, genetics sequencing of indigenous species and the publication of several impactful studies. Here’s to driving innovation in the field of indigenous psychoactive plant research!”
Under the leadership of Pretoria University’s Professor Vanessa Steenkamp, the primary aim of the Centre is to research medicines that:
· Are natural (derived from plants, fungi, biological organisms)
· Include traditional rituals and ceremonies (music, dance and movement)
· Assist in the treatment of mental health conditions (psychological, neurological and substance addictions)
· Originate from traditional medicine and indigenous knowledge systems of the traditional healers of Africa and the global South.
SCIPP is gathering mainstream momentum. The Centre is supported by eight government departments, including SAHPRA, Health, the DTICC, the CSIR and the Agricultural Research Council (ARC). It. is also heavily-backed by academia – the Imperial College of London, the Universities of the Free State, Stellenbosch and Kwazulu Natal, and the National University of Lesotho.
Private partners include leading Gauteng cannabis cultivators, Druids Garden and Psyence, a psychedelics company listed by South African entrepreneurs on the Toronto Stock Exchange.
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