Speaker: Noor Hilal AbuShamleh
Brief Bio:
Noor is a Graduate Research Assistant at RISE and a team member of the Environmental and Chemical Biology Group. She is continuing her master's degree in Biotechnology at the University of Sharjah. Most of her work focuses on the native desert plants of the UAE.
Abstract
Citrullus colocynthis is a desert plant native to the UAE. It has many medicinal benefits against different diseases including: cancer, diabetes type II, and possesses antimicrobial, antioxidant, anticancer, antidiabetic and anti-inflammatory compounds that may help in fighting many diseases. The exact environmental conditions responsible for the enhancement of the production of these compounds are not well defined. Among the environmental conditions that are prevailing in the UAE deserts and should affect the production of the bioactive anticancer metabolites are temperature, drought and salinity. Different types of cucurbitacins with different anticancer activities were reported in fruits of C. colocynthis, the medicinally important active metabolites that are used to treat cancer and diabetes are specifically important. This is particularly important, as both cancer and diabetes are serious life-threatening diseases affecting people worldwide. Management of these diseases are major target of most scientific communities since it considered as a major leading cause of death.
The ultimate goal of the work is to define the abiotic factors that could affect the propagation and production of important bioactive anticancer metabolites in Citrullus colocynthis.
Outcome
- 1) The proposed study is the first of its kind to use the natural environmental variations as green chemistry to optimize and modify the compounds structures for optimal and safe activities. Assessment of the yield of bioactive metabolites from C. colocynthis individuals and callus treated with different environmental stresses and at different times of the year would help to define best environmental conditions that would stimulate the productivity of these biologically active compounds. In addition, comparing the genetic varieties (accessions) that produce the highest bioactive anticancer metabolites would help in selecting the proper accession that could be used as a cash crop to be grown under the UAE Environment.
