Pharmacognosy Research Group

Project Description

Cancer is a life-threatening human disease affecting millions of people throughout the world (Siddiqui N., https://www.shaukatkhanum.org.pk/news-a-events/events/228.html). Mostly cancer is diagnosed at later stages especially in developing countries like Pakistan and hence it causes death to millions of humans (Siddiqui N., https://www.shaukatkhanum.org.pk/news-a-events/events/228.html). In cancer certain cellular, molecular and genetic changes occur which leads to a loss of control on cell cycle and growth (Lu et al., 2006).Most of the cancer cases in Pakistan are reported at their late stage and hence remain untreatable. The current cancer therapies are extremely expensive and out of range for majority of the people in Pakistan. Therefore, there is an urgent need to find new, novel and less expensive way of treatment for this dangerous fatal disease. Pakistan is rich in various species of medicinal plants that are used in folk medicine. However, a large number of these medicinal plants have never been scientifically investigated. Previous results showed that many natural products extract, or bioactive chemical constituents have anti-cancer activities. Those reports encourage us to search local medicinal plants that are having beneficial effects for the treatment of cancer.  To perform this study, the selected plants will be collected from their habitat and will be shade-dried or will be purchased from an authentic herbal dealer. This will be followed by pulverization. The powdered plant material will be extracted with methanol. After drying in rotary evaporator, the resulting extracts will be tested for its toxicity assay against the primary cells obtained from various organs of developmental chicks. The toxicity will also be evaluated against the non-cancerous cell lines using trypan blue exclusion method or MTT assay. Based on these assays the non-toxic extracts will be selected and its anti-cancer activity will be evaluated against breast cancer cell lines. All of the experiment will be performed in 2D and newly established 3D system. 

Members

  • Dr. Muhammad Ikram
  • Dr. Taous  Khan