About the Project
Date-fruit contains vast amount of phenols; approx. 80400µmol/100g, which portray antioxidant abilities. Date-fruit extracts have been tested in many recent studies with results showing evidences of the antioxidant, anti-fungal, anti-parasitic, anti-bacterial, anti-viral, and anti-mutagenic properties as natural alternatives in treating diseases. In-vivo and in-vitro studies demonstrated potential abilities in preventing damages to organs and/or slowing down unwanted side effects caused by oxidative stress and/or by chemo therapy. These properties could be extremely useful for different routes of administration through possible combination of nanoparticles cisplatin synthesised with date-fruit extract depending on the constituents and dosages required for a therapeutic effect. Nevertheless, in this context neither the date’s components have been fully examined nor their roles were clearly understood. This study would be a combined chemistry, parasitology, and/or life science project to investigate the mechanism of the date’s components in potentially preventing and/or treating cancer and/or minimising the side effects of the chemo treatment.
References
1. Rahmani, A.H., et al. ‘Therapeutic effects of date fruits (phoenix dactylifera) in the prevention of diseases via modulation of anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidant and anti-tumour activity’, 7(3), (2014).
2. Cancer Research UK. Worldwide cancer statistics; http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/health-professional/cancer-statistics/worldwide-cancer.
3. Quaresma M, Coleman MP, Rachet B. 40-year trends in an index of survival for all cancers combined and survival adjusted for age and sex for each cancer in England and wales, 1971–2011: A population-based study. 2016.
4. Ishurd, O. and Kennedy, J.F. (2005) ‘The anti-cancer activity of polysaccharide prepared from Libyan dates (L.)’, Carbohydrate Polymers, 59(4), pp. 531–535. doi: 10.1016/j.carbpol.2004.11.004, 2005Rencun Y, Hai H, Yu RC. Cancer management with Chinese medicine. Singapore, Singapore: World Scientific Publishing Co Pte. 2012
5. Lobo, V.,et al. ‘Free radicals, antioxidants and functional foods: Impact on human health’, 4(8), 2010.
6. Ramawat KG. Herbal drugs: Ethno-medicine to modern medicine. Berlin: Springer. 2009.
7. Najlaa S. Al-Radaddi. Green synthesis platinum nanoparticles using Saudi’s Date extract and their usage on the cancer cell treatment. Arabian Journal of Chemistry 12, 330-349, 2019.
