Medicinal plants could be unequivocally considered as one of the main sources of bioactive compounds, investigated due to the extent of chemical diversity and often pre-validated by ethnopharmacology. Besides the usual target-based monomolecular drug discovery approach, in the last decades the scientific community newly has taken into account the importance of herbal extracts and preparations, namely the role of the herbal “phytocomplex”. Actually the peculiar modulation of several biological processes, multi-target mechanisms and pharmacodynamic and pharmacokinetic synergistic effects exerted by many herbal drugs represent a very fascinating topic, worth to be better investigated.

This Methods Collection aims to focus on innovative technologies and methods used to study herbal substances and preparations in order to elucidate chemical and biological interactions among different compounds within a phytocomplex. We encourage researchers to share high-quality and original in vitro cell-based and cell-free techniques, as well as in vivo and in silico approaches. Examples of methods to be covered in this collection include coupling of chemical analyses to biological assays, experimentally validated network pharmacology approaches, advanced pharmacokinetic studies, validated in vivo models, innovative in vitro models coupled with molecular studies, and advanced microbiological tests.