Research Projects

Inflammation is a natural innate and adaptive immune response of a human body to a variety of hostile agents like infectious microorganisms, toxic chemical substances, parasites, physical damage to tissue, and natural aging. The traditional phytomedicine system is one of the most accepted traditional systems and according to World Health Organization (WHO), about three-quarters of the world population depends on traditional medicines (mainly herbs) for their healthcare. Recently it has been shown that several plants in use in traditional medicine for the treatment and management of distinct inflammatory disorders contain COX-2 inhibitors. Nevertheless, standardized use of herbal drugs based on their mechanism of action has remained an important issue warranting further investigations. Taking this into consideration, the study aims to evaluate the in-vitro and in-vivo anti-inflammatory potential of 10 selected medicinal plants such as Punica, etc. used in Indian traditional medications primarily to address inflammation in aging as the model system. Initially, the plant samples will be subjected to sequential extraction using both polar and nonpolar solvents and in-vitro anti-inflammatory activity will be determined using aged cell-based assays. Chemical profiling of plant extracts exhibiting best in-vivo anti-inflammatory activity will be carried out to identify the chemical constituents responsible for the activity. The in-vivo anti-inflammatory activity of the selected molecules showing promising inhibition will be assessed using carrageenan-induced rat inflammation and IR-mediated accelerated aging model. Similarly, biochemical profiling will be done to map the cascade being targeted by the extracts to understand the mechanism of action. Overall, the aim of the study is to identify and characterize anti-inflammatory molecules from traditional phytobiologicals.