Plant metabolites may serve as a significant renewable alternative to fossil and petroleum resources for a sustainable future. Among various plant secondary metabolites, terpenoids constitute the most numerous and structurally diverse group of natural products. Isolation of over 55000 terpenoids have been reported until recently and the number has been increasing steadily. Computations carried out by us on representative terpenoids have revealed that all the terpenoids are nanometer long having varied rigid and flexible lengths. The di and triterpenoids isolated from plants such as crotocembraneic, arjunolic, betulinic, oleanolic, glycyrrhetinic and ursolic acids and betulin self-assembled in the liquids at low concentrations affording self-assembled nano- to micro-sized architectures such as helical fibers, vesicles, spheres, etc.1-4 The self-assemblies were capable entrapping fluorophores including the anticancer drug doxorubicin. Recent results will be presented in the perspective of green, renewable and nanos.

Braja Gopal Bag is currently a Professor at the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Technology, Vidyasagar University. He obtained MSc in Chemistry from the IIT, Kharagpur in 1989 and PhD from the IISc Bangalore in 1994. Then he moved to Germany in 1996 as an Alexander von Humboldt fellow for post-doctoral research. He joined the Vidyasagar University as a Reader in Chemistry in the year 2000 and promoted to full Professor in 2008. He is the founder President of a Chemical Society named Chirantan Rasayan Sanstha® and Editor in Chief of the journal Prayogik Rasayan. His main research interests are plant metabolites as renewables, self-assembly, triterpenoids, nano-science and technology, hybrid materials and catalysis.